I  N 
THACKERAY' 
LONDON 

PICTURES    AND    TEXT 

'    BY 

F.    HOPKINSON    SMITH 


IN 

THACKERAY'S 

LONDON 


I  N 

THACKERAY'S 

LONDON 

PICTURES    AND    TEXT 

BY 
F.  HOPKINSON  SMITH 

AUTHOR    OF 

"Charcoals  of  New  and  Old 
New  York" 


GARDEN   CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
M  C  M  X  I   I  1 


ARCHITECTURE 


ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED,    INCLUDING    THAT   OF 

TRANSLATION  INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


COPYRIGHT,   191 3, 
BY  DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE  &  COMPANY 


i.     (.   c  (     t: 
c    c^      o      < 


s  r 


FOREWORD 

THE  author  begs  to  express  his  indebtedness  to  the  sev- 
eral authorities  who  have  made  a  close  and  intimate 
study  of  the  Ifie  and  work  of  the  man  whom  we  all 
love.  Notably  to  my  friends  William  H.  Rideing,  for  his 
**  Thackeray's  London,"  and  Lawrence  Hutton,  for  his 
"Literary  Landmarks  of  London."  To  Hare's  "Walks  in 
London,"  Taylor's  "Historical  Guide  to  London,"  Lucas's 
"A  Wanderer  in  London,"  Merivale's  "Thackeray,"  Theo- 
dore Taylor's  "Thackeray,  the  Humorist  and  Man  of 
Letters,"  Melville's  "Thackeray's  Country,"  and  Anthony 

TroUope's  "  Life  of  Thackeray." 

F.  H.  S. 

New  York,  August,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction xi 

CHAPTER 

I    The  Charter  House 3 

II    The  Colonel's  Rooms    ......  15 

III  Where  the  Colonel  Walked  and  Prayed        .  29 

IV  Smithfield  Market 41 

V    Staple  Inn          55 

VI    No.  36  Onslow  Square         .      ...      .  69 

VII    Jermyn  Street          .......  81 

VIII    Berkeley  Square 93 

IX    St.  George's  Church,  Hanover  Square    .      .  109 

X    The  Reform  Club 121 

XI    Covent  Garden 131 

XII    Fleet  Street  and  "The  Cock"  Tavern    .      .  143 

XIII    The  Cheshire  Cheese     .      .      .      .      .      .  157 

XIV    Fleet  Street  and  St.  Paul's       ....  167 

XV    Hare  and  Lamb  Court,  Middle  Temple       .  179 

XVI    London  Bridge 193 


Vll 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Outside  View  of  Colonel  Newcome's  Rooms   .      .  7 

Room  in  Which  Colonel  Newcome  Died   ...  17 

Washhouse  Court  —  Grey  Friars 31 

Cloister  of  Chapel  —  Grey  Friars 35 

Interior  of  Chapel  at  Grey  Friars        ....  39 

Smithfield  Market 43 

St.  Bartholomew's  the  Great 47 

Staple  Inn 59 

No.  36  Onslow  Square 71 

Jermyn  Street          83 

Berkeley  Square 95 

St.  George's  Church,  Hanover  Square       .      .      .  113 

The  Reform  Club 125 

Covent  Garden  Market,  with  Portico  of  St.  Paul's 

Church 137 

The  Cock  Tavern 145 

Fleet  Street  from  Cock  Tavern 149 

Interior  of  the  Cheshire  Cheese 159 

Fleet  Street  and  St.  Paul's 169 

Hare  Court 181 

Lamb  Court 187 

London  Bridge 195 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  first  and  only  time  I  saw  him  was  in  Baltimore, 
when  I  was  seventeen  years  old. 
He  and  Mr.  John  P.  Kennedy,  a  friend  of  my 
father,  strolled  one  Saturday  afternoon  into  the  Mercantile 
Library  where  we  boys  were  reading. 

"Look!"  came  from  a  tangle  of  legs  and  arms  bunched  up 
in  an  adjoining  easy  chair.  "That's  the  Mr.  Thackeray 
who  is  lecturing  here." 

My  glance  followed  a  directing  finger,  and  rested  on  a 
tall,  rather  ungraceful  figure,  topped  by  a  massive  head 
framed  about  by  a  fringe  of  whitish  hair,  short,  fuzzy 
whiskers,  crumply  collar  and  black  stock.  Out  of  a  pink 
face  peered  two  sharp  inquiring  eyes,  these  framed  again  by 
the  dark  rims  of  a  pair  of  heavy  spectacles,  which,  from  my 
point  of  sight,  became  two  distinct  dots  in  the  round  of  the 
same  pink  face.  The  portrait  of  Horace  Greeley  widely 
published  during  his  Presidential  campaign  —  the  one  all 
throat-whiskers  and  spectacles  —  has  always  recalled  to 
my  mind  this  flash  glimpse  of  the  great  author  whom  I 
afterward  learned  to  revere. 

As  I  grew  older  and  began  to  know  him  and  his  work  the 
better,  this  early  snapshot  —  caught  upon  one  of  the  many 


INTRODUCTION 

millions  of  films  stored  away  in  some  one  of  my  brain  cells 
—  became  the  central  figure  about  which  were  grouped  a 
series  of  other  portraits  quite  as  real:  Red-faced,  rakish, 
shabby-looking  Captain  Costigan,  with  his  hat  cocked  very 
much  over  one  ear;  Major  Pendennis,  that  snob  of  snobs, 
scrupulously  neat  in  his  checked  cravat,  double  gold  eye- 
glasses, buff  waistcoat  and  spotless  linen,  as  he  sat  in  his 
club  opening  his  mail,  or  as  he  appeared  with  a  yellow  face, 
a  bristly  beard,  and  a  wig  out  of  curl  after  the  dreary  night 
spent  in  the  mail-coach,  when  he  went  to  save  his  scape- 
grace of  a  nephew  from  the  clutches  of  the  Fotheringay; 
Becky  Sharp,  in  brilliant  full  toilette,  her  fingers  and  breast 
flashing  with  the  jewels  the  Marquis  of  Steyne  had  given 
her,  and  the  old  scoundrel  himself  in  silk  stockings  and  knee- 
breeches,  the  ribbon  of  the  Garter  across  his  chest;  War- 
rington, Clive,  and  the  unspeakable  Campaigner;  and  last, 
and  best  beloved  of  all,  the  pale,  thoughtful  face  of  dear 
Colonel  Newcome,  his  black  frock-coat,  close-buttoned 
about  his  slim  waistline. 

Yes!  I  have  seen  and  known  them  all,  each  and  every 
one.  I  must  admit  that  owing  to  the  long  lapse  of  years, 
and  the  absence  of  any  such  corroborative  physiognomies 
as  Mr.  Greeley's,  some  of  the  negatives  may  be  slightly 
blurred,  but  enough  is  left  of  the  old  films  for  me  to  distin- 
guish the  originals.  More  than  that,  I  am  willing  to  make 
oath  that  I  have  seen  the  Colonel  himself  in  the  flesh  — not 
once,  but  dozens  of  times. 

I  will  even  maintain  that  he  is  still  alive;  for  I  called  on 
him  during  my  last  visit  to  London,  when  these  accom- 
panying sketches  were  made.    Though  I  failed,  owing  to 


INTRODUCTION 

unfortunate  and  unforeseen  circumstances,  to  find  him  at 
home,  he  having  '*  just  stepped  out,"  his  associates,  or  suc- 
cessors, or  whatever  else  you  choose  to  call  them,  were  within 
reach  and  showed  me  all  over  the  place. 

Unfortunately,  too,  Becky,  Clive,  and  the  others  had 
"just  stepped  out"  —  an  unaccountable  thing  to  me,  for 
they  had  had  no  notice  of  my  coming.  I  had  only  conformed 
to  the  etiquette  demanded  abroad  —  that  is,  I  had  made  the 
first  call  —  and  the  rebuff,  if  you  choose  to  consider  it  so, 
was  therefore  the  more  regrettable.  And  yet  I  was  noti 
affronted.  I  know  that  some  day  they  will  return  my' 
courtesy,  every  one  of  them,  and  the  man  with  the  fine  head 
and  pink  face,  whom  I  saw  when  a  boy,  will  bring  them. 
Whether  to  my  lodgings,  or  my  house,  or  my  library,  I  can- 
not now  say,  but  to  some  one  of  the  places  in  which  I  happen 
to  be;  and  they  will  keep  on  coming  —  no  fear  of  that  —  as 
long  as  I  can  see  to  read. 

That  I  should  have  headed  my  visiting  list  with  the  name 
of  the  Colonel  can  surprise  nobody.  I  was  at  my  hotel 
in  Jermyn  Street,  at  the  time,  with  my  friend  Jules,  and 
as  London  is  a  big  place,  and  the  people  I  wanted  to  see 
were  scattered  from  the  Tower  to  Smithfield,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  Kensington  and  the  neighbourhood  round  about, 
walking  was  out  of  the  question. 

"Call  a  taxi,  porter,"  I  said. 

He  called  it.  That  is,  he  stepped  out,  bareheaded,  on 
the  narrow  sidewalk,  blew  a  whistle  which  sounded  like  a 
policeman  summoning  aid,  and  up  dashed  a  green  and  yel- 
low comfort,  the  match  of  which  does  not  exist  the  world 
over  —  and  there  are  thousands  just  like  it  in  London. 


INTRODUCTION 

I  saw  at  a  glance  that  the  make-up  and  proportions  of 
the  machine  were  all  right,  for  the  back  hood,  when  loos- 
ened, sank  low  enough  for  me  to  see  my  subject  over  its 
edge  (an  essential  for  me,  who  paint  with  my  back  to  the 
driver,  my  easel  and  charcoals  on  the  cushion  of  the  main 
seat). 

The  chauffeur  was  all  right  too  —  no  question  about  that; 
a  well-built,  broad-shouldered  man  of  forty,  with  clean-cut 
features,  straight  nose,  firm,  straight  mouth  —  a  mere  slit 
of  a  mouth  —  and  a  straight  look  out  of  his  eyes.  There 
was,  moreover,  no  unnecessary  shunting  alongside  the  curb, 
no  talking  back  —  just  a  bend  of  his  head  in  close  attention, 
so  as  to  miss  no  word,  and  an  earnest,  responsive  glance. 

"To  Charter  House,  up  Smithfield  way,"  I  said,  after 
the  porter  had  stowed  in  my  canvas,  charcoal  box,  and  easel. 

"Yes,  sir,"  and  he  touched  the  edge  of  his  hat  brim  with 
the  tip  end  of  his  forefinger. 

*' Better  go  out  through  Holborn  and  the  Market,"  I 
added. 

"Yes,  sir"  —  the  finger  again  at  the  brim.  This  time  it 
was  the  knuckle  that  touched  the  edge,  followed  by  a  slight 
pause  —  the  salute  of  a  soldier  to  his  superior  officer. 

"And  slow  down  when  you  pass  Staple  Inn." 

"Yes,  sir" — no  touch  now;  the  necessary  courtesies 
and  civilities  having  been  accorded  —  and  we  were  off. 


XIV 


CHAPTER  I 

GREY  FRIARS 
THE  CHARTER  HOUSE 


CHAPTER  I 

GREY  FRIARS 
THE  CHARTER  HOUSE 

AS  WE  whirled  up  Holborn,  I  caught  now  and  then, 
/%  through  the  side  window  of  the  taxi,  gUmpses  of 
-L  JL  places  I  knew.  At  Staple  Inn  was  the  entrance  gate 
where  I  had  once  painted  in  the  rain,  my  feet  on  a  plank  to 
keep  them  off  the  soggy,  water-soaked  grass  —  the  day  the 
old  porter  had  thawed  me  out  before  his  soft-coal  fire,  and  I 
had  sent  for  something  warmer,  which  we  shared  between  us. 
Then  I  overlooked  the  Market,  with  its  long  line  of  big 
white  wagons  filled  with  the  carcasses  of  the  night's  kill; 
and  a  little  later  plunged  into  the  unknown,  up  a  side 
alley,  down  the  street  of  St.  John,  around  a  silent,  deserted 
Square,  hemmed  about  by  an  iron  railing,  the  sad,  melan- 
choly trees  standing  like  homeless  tramps,  the  raindrops 
dripping  from  their  broad,  leaf-covered  shoulders  —  nothing 
so  depressing  as  a  London  park  in  a  wet  fog  —  and  last,  up 
a  still  narrower  street  until  we  stopped  at  the  ancient  gate- 
way in  Cistercian  Square  where  lies  the  old  Hospital  of  Grey 
Friars. 

We  had  reached  it  at  last  —  the  very  street  that  the 
Colonel  had  trod  on  his  daily  walks  to  the  city,  Pendennis 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

and  Clive  sometimes  beside  him,  their  anguished  hearts 
full  of  an  unspoken  tenderness.  Ethel,  too  —  brave,  loyal 
Ethel,  who  had  discovered  the  letter  bequeathing  her 
"dear,  dear  uncle"  £500,  had  passed  through  this  very 
gate  eager  to  carry  the  news  to  the  Colonel.  Pendennis, 
on  whose  arm  she  entered,  was  a  happy  man  that  day. 

"As  we  traversed  the  court  the  Poor  Brothers  were  com- 
ing from  dinner,"  he  says.  **A  couple  of  score,  or  more,  of 
old  gentlemen  in  black  gowns  issued  from  the  door  of  their 
refectory  and  separated  over  the  court,  betaking  themselves 
to  their  chambers.  Ethel's  arm  trembled  under  mine  as  she 
looked  at  one  and  another,  expecting  to  behold  her  dear 
uncle's  familiar  features.  But  he  was  not  among  the 
brethren.  We  went  to  his  chamber,  of  which  the  door  was 
open;  a  female  attendant  was  arranging  the  room;  she  told 
us  Colonel  Newcome  was  out  for  the  day,  and  thus  our 
journey  had  been  in  vain." 

Neither  did  I  find  him  at  home.  The  same  old  porter 
listened  attentively  to  my  request,  and,  in  reply,  pointed  to 
the  house  of  the  Head  Master.  He  had  grown  younger,  of 
course,  in  all  the  years,  but  he  wore  the  same  livery  —  the 
same  coat  for  all  I  know.  And  the  same  old  Head  Master 
welcomed  me,  holding  my  card  in  his  hand,  looking  at  me 
over  the  top  of  his  glasses  —  a  brave,  thoughtful  man  of 
seventy,  perhaps,  with  a  cheery,  hearty  manner,  and  one  of 
those  fresh  English  complexions  that  neither  age  nor  climate 
affects.  I  forget  what  his  name  was  in  the  Colonel's  time, 
but  it  is  the  Reverend  Mr.  Davies  now. 

He  led  me  to  a  wide,  open  court,  framed  about  by  quaint 
buildings,  and  covered  by  clean  gravel,  over  which  strolled 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

in  twos  and  threes,  some  of  the  Poor  Brothers  whom  Ethel 
had  seen  in  their  long,  black  gowns,  most  of  them  bareheaded, 
for  it  was  June,  and  the  sun  had  come  out  for  a  brief  spell. 

Here  he  paused. 

"Before  I  show  you  Colonel  Newcome's  room"  —  he, 
too,  I  saw,  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  mixing  his  personali- 
ties —  *'I  want  you  to  see  our  great  Hall  —  Guesten  Hall. 
I  have  brought  the  keys,  for  this  part  of  Charter  House  is 
not  shown  except  in  special  cases."  He  fitted  a  great  key 
into  a  massive  lock,  and  pushed  in  the  door,  revealing  a 
spacious  panelled  room,  with  high  ceiling,  huge  fireplace, 
and  carved  screen  shortening  one  end  of  its  bigness.  ''Now, 
step  a  little  closer  and  put  your  two  feet  on  that  plank. 
There,  sir!  That  is  the  exact  spot  on  which  Mr.  Thackeray 
once  stood  when  he  emptied  his  pocket  of  its  shillings.  I 
was  away  over  by  the  fireplace,  and  I  edged  as  close  as  I 
dared,  but  he  didn't  see  me.  What,  sir,  would  you  give 
to-day  for  a  shilling  that  Colonel  Newcome  had  given  you? 
I  was  a  Cistercian,  you  know,  and  whenever  Mr.  Thackeray 
came  to  visit  us  he  always  had  his  pocket  full  of  shillings. 
When  there  was  not  enough  he  would  borrow  from  any- 
body about  him  —  once  he  had  not  a  single  sixpence  left, 
and  had  to  walk  home. 

"We  always  called  him  'Colonel'  whenever  he  came,  just 
as  they  used  to  call  Captain  Thomas  Light,  who  was  really 
the  original  Colonel  Newcome,  after  his  namesake.  Yes, 
you  shall  see  the  very  room  and  go  inside,  if  old  Brother 
Bridger,  who  occupies  it,  will  let  you  see  it,  for  he,  too, 
is  a  lover  of  Thackeray,  and  once  he  knows  you  want  to 
make  sketches  you  won't  have  a  bit  of  trouble." 

5 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

The  keys  were  jangling  together  again.  This  time  one 
more  modest  was  selected. 

"Now,  step  in  —  isn't  that  a  grand  banquet  hall?  Here 
is  where  the  Brothers  take  their  meals,  breakfast,  dinner, 
and  supper,  and  in  this  chair,"  and  he  pulled  it  out, 
"is  where  Mr.  Thackeray  stood  the  last  time  I  saw  him. 
He  had  come  on  Founders'  Day  to  make  a  speech,  and  I  can 
see  him  now  as  he  pushed  back  his  chair  and  stood  facing 
the  Brothers  who  stood  up  in  his  honour,  and  I  can  almost 
hear  the  tones  of  his  voice;  and  that,  my  dear  sir,  was  the 
last  time  I  saw  him  alive,  for  he  died  within  the  year.  And 
now,  if  you  will  excuse  me,  for  it  is  one  of  my  busy  days,  I'll 
show  you  the  outside  of  the  Colonel's  rooms,  and  the  door- 
way with  the  tablet  bearing  Mr.  Thackeray's  name,  and 
the  tablet  bearing  Captain  Thomas  Light's  name.  There! 
Stoop  down  and  read  it  —  the  vines  grow  rather  thick. 
And  now,  sketch  away  to  your  heart's  content  and  make 
yourself  quite  at  home,  and  if  you  get  into  trouble  of  any 
kind  please  come  to  me." 

Thus  it  was  that  I  opened  my  easel  under  the  window  of 
the  very  room  which  I  had  come  three  thousand  miles  to  see; 
and,  just  here,  I  want  to  say  to  my  readers  that  in  attempting 
to  convey  to  them  something  of  the  charm,  and  more  par- 
ticularly something  of  the  reality,  of  these  homes  and  haunts 
of  Mr.  Thackeray  and  his  characters,  I  mean  to  rely  more 
upon  my  illustrations  than  upon  my  text,  avoiding,  as  best  I 
can,  unnecessary,  and,  perhaps,  misleading  descriptions. 

That  the  sight  of  a  man  plumped  down  in  the  middle  of 
the  main  path,  the  most  of  him  on  a  three-legged  stool,  the 

6 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

whole  of  him  working  away  like  mad,  his  fingers  smudged 
with  charcoal,  was  not  an  everyday  spectacle,  became  in- 
stantly apparent.  Every  Poor  Brother,  strolling  aimlessly 
about,  wheeled  and  bore  down  upon  me. 

"I'm  an  artist  myself,"  offered  an  old  fellow  who  must 
have  been  eighty  (if  he  were  a  day).  "That's  a  fine  me- 
dium, that  charcoal,  if  you  don't  try  to  do  too  much  with 
it  — we  boys  used  to  use  it  at  the  academy." 

The  others  kept  silent,  watching  me  closely,  and  nodding 
their  heads  as  I  explained  my  methods  of  work. 

"May  I  ask  you  where  you  come  from?"  whispered  an- 
other pensioner,  loosening  his  long  black  cloak  as  he  stooped 
to  get  my  answer— a  retired  naval  officer  I  learned  after- 
ward. 

" What !  An  American ! "  he  cried,  starting  back.  "Why, 
you  don't  talk  like  an  American." 

"Neither  do  you  speak  like  a  Welshman,  nor  a  Scotchman, 
nor  a  London  Cockney.  We  have  as  many  dialects  as  you," 
I  suggested  in  answer,  my  voice  raised  as  I  glanced  tow^ard 
the  others,  "and  yet  we  are  all  Englishmen." 

"Yes,  all  Englishmen;  yes,  that's  true  —  all  Englishmen," 
he  kept  repeating,  as  if  the  idea  were  entirely  novel  to  him; 
and  so  the  chatter  went  on,  the  crowd  getting  thicker  all 
the  time,  the  chapel  service  now  being  over,  some  remain- 
ing standing  until  my  sketch  was  finished;  others,  the 
older  and  more  tired  or  feeble,  going  into  their  rooms  — 
they  all  lived  in  a  row  of  small  houses,  each  one  with  a 
window  and  a  door  opening  on  the  court  —  for  chairs  and 
stools  on  which  to  rest. 

I  had,  without  my  knowing  it,  been  a  godsend  to  a  group 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  people  who  had  heard  each  other's  stories  for  the  hun- 
dredth time,  who  knew  every  crook  and  twinge  in  each 
other's  back  and  limbs,  who  had  quarrelled  and  made  up, 
and  quarrelled  again,  and  who  were  so  set  in  their  ways  that 
many  a  subject  was  outlawed  and  strangled  by  common 
consent  at  the  first  utterance.  Yet  kindly  gentlemen 
withal,  attached  to  each  other  by  the  common  bond  of  pov- 
erty and  suffering,  their  fortunes  wrecked,  and  they  left 
stranded  together  on  the  barren  coast  of  life. 

Ethel  could  not  bear  to  think  of  her  dear  uncle,  in  such 
a  place,  but  the  Colonel  himself  saw  only  the  cheerful  sides. 

"*I  have  found  a  home,  Arthur,'  he  said  to  Pendennis. 
*  Don't  you  remember,  before  I  went  to  India,  when  we  came 
to  see  the  old  Grey  Friars,  and  visited  Captain  Scarsdale  in 
his  room?  —  a  Poor  Brother  like  me  —  an  old  Peninsular 
man.  Scarsdale  is  gone  now,  sir,  and  is  where  "the  wicked 
cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary  are  at  rest";  and  I 
thought  then,  when  we  saw  him  —  here  would  be  a  place  for 
an  old  fellow  when  his  career  was  over,  to  hang  his  sword  up ; 
to  humble  his  soul,  and  to  wait  thankfully  for  the  end,  Arthur. 
My  good  friend.  Lord  H.,  who  is  a  Cistercian  like  ourselves, 
and  has  just  been  appointed  a  governor,  gave  me  his  first 
nomination.  Don't  be  agitated,  Arthur,  my  boy,  I  am 
very  happy.  I  have  good  quarters,  good  food,  good  light, 
and  fire,  and  good  friends;  blessed  be  God!  .  .  .  And 
if  I  wear  a  black  gown,  is  not  that  uniform  as  good  as  an- 
other? and  if  we  have  to  go  to  church  every  day,  at  which 
some  of  the  Poor  Brothers  grumble,  I  think  an  old  fellow 
can't  do  better.'" 

Three  or  four  of  them,  when  my  work  was  finished  and 

10 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Evins  had  carried  my  traps  to  the  taxi,  shook  hands  with 
me  in  parting,  and  one  old  fellow  walked  with  me  as  far  as 
the  gate,  his  long  black  Pensioner's  cloak  flapping  about  his 
unsteady  legs;  and  yet  he  bore  himself  erect,  and,  as  I 
noticed  later  on,  with  a  certain  distinction  —  that  inde- 
scribable quality  in  a  man  which  only  comes  with  good  birth, 
good  breeding,  and  the  consciousness  of  having  done  some- 
thing worth  while.  When  he  had  lifted  his  hat,  and  had 
begun  to  retrace  his  steps,  I  found  myself  standing  where 
he  had  left  me,  my  eyes  following  his  every  movement, 
until  he  disappeared  in  an  angle  of  the  court. 

''Yes,  sir,"  said  the  porter,  in  answer  to  my  inquiring 
glance,  "I  don't  wonder  you  want  to  know  —  you  ain't  the 
first  has  asked  me.  If  you'd  been  sharp  you  might  have 
got  a  look  at  the  Victoria  Cross  he  wears  on  his  breast 
underneath  his  gown.     There  ain't  many  like  him." 

"Well,  why  is  he  here?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  sir,  they  do  say  he  was  too  honest  to  stay  out." 


11 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  COLONEL'S  ROOMS 
AT  GREY  FRIARS 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  COLONEL'S  ROOMS 
AT  GREY  FRIARS 

1HAD  kept  for  the  following  day  —  as  one  sometimes 
keeps  a  precious  letter,  to  be  opened  when  alone  —  the 
rooms  in  which  the  old  Pensioner  lived  and  died. 
While  sketching  the  court,  I  had  seen  the  outside  walls. 
There,  under  my  eyes,  had  been  the  few  steps  leading  to 
the  low-pitched  door,  which  he  had  entered  so  often. 
The  very  same  window  had  blinked  at  me,  from  under  its 
bushy  eyebrows  of  matted  vines  —  the  same  through  which 
he  had  peered  when  waiting  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Ethel  or 
Clive.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  convincing,  and 
yet,  there,  too,  all  the  time  staring  me  in  the  face,  had 
been  the  disturbing  tablet,  declaring  that  the  whole  legend 
was  a  farce  and  a  sham.  That  there  was  no  Colonel  New- 
come  —  never  had  been  any.  That  one,  Thomas  Light,  a 
Captain  in  His  Majesty's  service,  was  the  simon-pure  and 
only  original  Colonel  inhabiting  that  room,  as  could  be 
proved  not  only  by  the  records  of  the  Charter  House,  men- 
daciously labelled  and  libelled  by  Mr.  Thackeray  as  Grey 
Friars,  but  also  by  His  Majesty's  Army  Register,  in  which 

15 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

the  full  name,  title,  and  services  of  this  distinguished  military 
gentleman  were  duly  set  forth. 

But  I  would  have  none  of  it. 

I  had  seen  too  many  tablets  in  my  time,  laudatory  and 
otherwise  —  some  of  most  disreputable  persons  —  to  be 
swer\^ed  from  my  convictions,  and  so  the  next  morning  I  left 
my  chauffeur,  Evins  (now  my  right-hand  man),  outside  the 
gate  with  instructions  to  call  for  me  in  the  late  afternoon, 
and  made  my  way  along  the  open  court  to  the  rooms  of 
Colonel  Thomas  Newcome. 

Above  the  white,  well-scoured  steps,  and  just  inside  the 
doorway,  seen  in  the  sketch,  there  was  another  tablet  of 
brass  —  a  real  one — giving  the  date  of  Air.  Thackeray's 
visits;  and  then,  sharp  to  the  left,  a  narrow,  dark  hall.  I 
fumbled  for  a  knocker  or  a  bell,  and,  finding  none  rapped 
gently,  and  I  must  confess,  rather  timidly  —  an  apologetic 
knock,  as  if  to  say,  "impudent  is  no  name  for  me,  but  please 
don't  slam  the  door  in  my  face  imtil  you  hear  me  out." 

"Come  in,"  called  a  cheery  voice,  and  I  pushed  in  the 
door. 

"I  am  making  a  series  of  drawings  of  Mr.  Thackeray's 
haimts,"  I  began,  to  a  short,  full-bodied  man  in  silhouette 
against  a  window,  through  which  the  sun  poured,  lighting 
up  the  desk  at  which  he  sat  and  making  an  aureole  of  his 
gray  hair,  "and  I  thought  you  might  be  good  enough  to 
let  me  come  some  time  when  it  would  not  disturb  you, 
and " 

"Let  you  come!"  He  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant,  with 
both  hands  extended.  "  Of  course  you  can  come,  and  this 
very  minute!    If  you  had  waited  ten  more  I  should  have 

16 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

been  gone  —  stop  until  I  get  my  hat  and  cane.  Stay  here 
just  as  long  as  you  please;  I  shan't  be  back  until  near  five, 
when  we  will  have  tea  —  here's  the  key;  hang  it  on  the  nail 
outside  when  you  have  finished;  and  if  a  tall,  lanky,  hungry- 
looking  boy  raps,  you  can  let  him  in  —  he's  my  nephew  — 
and  tell  him  the  jam's  all  out  —  so  there;  and  now,  good- 
bye." 

"Hold  on !"  I  cried.     " Let  me  get  my  breath.     Why? " 

"Why  what?" 

"Why  have  you  taken  me  in  this  way?  I  can't  possibly 
understand  how  you  could " 

"You  don't  have  to  understand.  Thirty  years  ago,  when 
I  was  a  young  man,  I  went  to  the  States  and  rang  the  door- 
bell of  a  man  in  Newark,  New  Jersey,  to  whom  I  had  a 
letter.  He  was  father  and  mother  and  brother  to  me  dur- 
ing the  four  years  I  spent  in  your  country,  and  since  that 
time  I  have  never  let  an  American  pass  my  door,  or  enter  it, 
without  wanting  to  give  him  half  of  everything  I  had.  I 
watched  you  from  my  window  all  yesterday  morning,  and 
after  you  had  gone  and  I  found  out  where  you  came  from  I 
was  so  disappointed  I  couldn't  get  to  sleep.  Don't  forget 
about  the  jam,  and  be  sure  you're  here  for  tea,"  and  he 
slammed  the  door  behind  him. 

To  be  shut  up  alone  in  a  room  belonging  to  a  friend  whom 
you  have  not  seen  for  years,  and  whose  quarters  you  have 
(entered  for  the  first  time,  is  a  queer  experience.  To  realize 
that  within  its  walls  he  himself  had  died  some  fifty  years 
ago,  and  in  the  very  bed  at  which  you  are  looking,  and 
that  every  other  thing  in  the  place  is  practically  as  he  left 
it,  adds  a  touch  of  the  uncanny. 

19 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

The  same  fireplace,  too,  "with  a  brisk  fire  crackling  on 
the  hearth;  a  little  tea  table  laid  out,  a  Bible  and  spectacles 

by  the  side  of  it,  and  over  the  mantelpiece  a  drawing " 

all  just  as  Ethel  saw  it.  "She  looked  at  the  pictures  of 
Clive  and  his  boy;  the  two  sabres  crossed  over  the  mantel- 
piece, the  Bible  laid  on  the  table,  by  the  old  latticed  window. 
She  walked  slowly  up  to  the  humble  bed,  and  sat  down  on  a 
chair  near  it.  No  doubt  her  heart  prayed  for  him  who  slept 
there;  she  turned  round  where  his  black  Pensioner's  cloak 
was  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  lifted  up  the  homely  garment, 
and  kissed  it." 

I  had  all  this  in  my  mind  as  I  made  a  careful  inventory 
of  the  appointments  and  furniture.  Yes!  Everything 
was  the  same,  except  the  two  sabres,  and,  perhaps,  even 
these  were  tucked  away  in  the  corner  by  the  big  wardrobe 
in  the  little  bedroom  beyond;  and  Clive's  portrait,  which 
may  also  have  been  spirited  away,  and  some  of  the  earlier 
Bridgers  put  in  its  place. 

But  the  queer  easy  chair  was  there,  and  so  was  the 
Pensioner's  old  black  cloak,  and  on  the  same  hook,  no 
doubt,  there  by  the  washstand.  That  she  had  lifted  up  the 
homely  garment  and  kissed  it  was  easy  to  understand.  I 
confess  I  felt  something  like  that  myself,  as  the  spell  of  the 
place  took  possession  of  me.  Soon  the  pictures  I  loved  were 
flashed  on  my  memory  —  not  only  the  one  I  had  seen  in  the 
Library  when  a  boy,  but  the  many  others  with  which 
the  master  has  enriched  our  lives.  Clearest  of  all,  because 
dearest,  shone  the  tall,  slim  man  with  the  pale,  sad  face, 
who,  in  this  very  room,  had  answered,  "  Adsum." 

As  I  worked  on  I  relived  that  scene  of  his  closing  hours, 

20 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

the  friends  who  had  been  with  him  stealing  into  the  room, 
and  grouping  themselves  around  me. 

*'Bayham  opened  the  door  .  .  .  and  came  toward 
me  with  a  finger  on  his  lip,  and  a  sad,  sad  countenance. 
.  .  .  He  closed  the  door  gently  behind  him,  and  led  me 
into  the  court.  Xlive  is  with  him,  and  Miss  Newcome. 
He  is  very  ill.  He  does  not  know  them,'  said  Bayham, 
with  a  sob.  'He  calls  out  for  both  of  them:  they  are  sit- 
ting there,  and  he  does  not  know  them.'    .    .    . 

**  Sometime  afterward  Ethel  came  in  with  a  scared  face 
to  our  pale  group.  *He  is  calling  for  you  again,  dear  lady,' 
she  said,  going  up  to  Mme.  de  Florae,  who  was  still  kneel- 
ing; *and  just  now  he  said  he  wanted  Pendennis  to  take  care 
of  his  boy.  He  will  not  know  you.'  She  hid  her  tears  as 
she  spoke. 

*'She  went  into  the  room  where  Clive  was  at  the  bed's 
foot;  the  old  man  within  it  talked  on  rapidly  for  a  while; 
then  again  he  would  sigh,  and  be  still;  once  more  I  heard 
him  say  hurriedly,  'Take  care  of  him  when  I'm  in  India;' 
and  then  with  a  heartrending  voice  he  called  out, '  Leonore, 
Leonore.'  She  was  kneeling  by  his  side  now.  The  pa- 
tient's voice  sank  into  faint  murmurs;  only  a  moan  now  and 
then  announced  that  he  was  not  asleep. 

"At  the  usual  evening  hour  the  chapel  bell  began  to  toll, 
and  Thomas  Newcome's  hands  outside  the  bed  feebly  beat 
time.  And  just  as  the  last  bell  struck  a  peculiar  sweet 
smile  shone  over  his  face,  and  he  lifted  up  his  head  a  little, 
and  quickly  said,  '  Adsum!'  and  fell  back.  It  was  the  word 
we  used  at  school,  and  when  names  were  called:  and  lo! 
he,  whose  heart  was  as  that  of  a  little  child,  had  an- 

21 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

swered  to  his  name,  and  stood  in  the  presence  of  the 
Master." 

The  silence  became  profound;  broken  only  by  the  scratch- 
ing of  my  coal  on  my  canvas  —  a  weird,  uncanny  stillness 
—  the  kind  that  a  child  fears  when  shut  up  alone  in  a  bare 
room.  Now  and  then  I  caught  myself  listening  for  the  toll 
of  the  chapel  bell;  more  than  once  I  craned  my  head  in  the 
effort  to  see  around  the  jamb  of  the  wide  dividing  door 
hiding  the  bed  on  which  he  breathed  his  last. 

About  four  o'clock  there  came  a  loud  knock.  I  had  the 
story  of  the  jam  all  ready  for  the  tall,  hungry  nephew,  but 
it  was  only  the  postman  who  left  a  newspaper  addressed  to 
the  Reverend  Wm.  I.  Bridger  —  the  first  time  I  had  learned 
his  full  name.  This  I  laid  on  a  chair  instead  of  on  the  desk, 
I  being  at  the  moment  busy  with  its  outlines,  and  there 
being  enough  of  detail  already  on  its  capacious  top. 

At  half-past  four  there  came  another  knock.  This  time 
it  was  my  host,  who  cried  in  a  voice  that  put  my  ghosts  to 
flight,  "  So  glad  you  stayed  —  anybody  been  here?  Oh,  yes, 
the  postman,"  and  he  picked  up  the  wrapper.  He  had 
espied  it  on  its  chair  halfway  across  the  room.  "Small 
place,  you  see,  and  I  get  to  know  every  little  thing  in  it,  as 
a  prisoner  does  in  a  cell.  It's  my  world,  you  understand. 
Now  we'll  have  tea." 

He  went  out  and  came  back  with  a  china  pot  and  a  plate 
of  oatmeal,  and  I  was  once  more  in  the  world  of  to-day. 

"  We'll  have  it  on  this  desk.  Do  you  know  Mr.  Thackeray 
wrote  the  last  chapters  of  *The  Newcomes'  on  this  very  desk? 
You  remember  he  had  a  way  of  cramming  his  manuscript 

22 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

"And  here  is  yet  another  —  such  pitiful  things  occur  here 
among  our  Brothers.  Sometimes  I  write  them  down  and  file 
them  away.  Perhaps  some  day  they  will  be  found  by  some 
of  my  successors,  and  add  to  the  history  of  our  home. 
Listen  to  this;  I  will  read  it  if  you  don't  mind: 

*** Pathetic  circumstances  attach  to  the  death  of  Dr.  B., 
one  of  the  Brethren  of  Charter  House,  London,  which  took 
place  on  Tuesday  evening.  For  months  past  Dr.,  who  was 
over  eighty,  had  been  in  failing  health,  but  his  work  in 
connection  with  the  invention  of  an  electric  lamp  for  mines, 
on  which  he  had  been  engaged  for  many  years,  had  buoyed 
him  up.  The  ultimate  failure  of  his  plans  greatly  depressed 
him,  and  he  gradually  sank  and  died  in  his  rooms  in  Charter 
House. 

' '  *  On  Saturday  he  received  a  letter  from  the  Patent  Office, 
informing  him  that  his  application  for  the  taking  out  of  a 
Patent  had  been  approved,  but  he  remarked,  **  It  is  too  late." ' 

**No,  take  it  along  with  you— I  make  them  in  hectograph 
so  my  friends  can  each  have  a  copy." 

And  so,  with  the  oatmeal  eaten  —  there  had  been  enough 
for  two,  the  nephew  not  having  put  in  an  appearance  — 
and  the  tea  drank,  I  left  my  genial  host,  whose  reverence 
for  the  Colonel  was  like  my  own,  promising  to  come  again 
in  the  morning  when  he  would  show  me  over  Washhouse 
Court,  where  the  Colonel  often  walked;  through  the  cloister, 
where  Mr.  Thackeray's  and  John  Leech's  tablets  were  to  be 
seen  high  on  the  white  walls,  and  into  the  chapel,  where 
Thackeray  prayed  as  a  boy,  and  where  his  greatest  and  best 
beloved  creation  prayed  both  as  boy  and  man. 

25 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

pital  (1),  where  he  lived,  with  the  respect  of  old  &  young 
(2),  tended  lovingly  through  all  the  hours  of  daylight  by  his 
Daughter,  Miss  Light,  who  retired  to  some  lodging  hard  by, 

when  bed-time  came 

" '  To  the  quarters  of  this  good  old  gentleman,  I  led 
Thackeray,  &  after  knocking,  I  entered,  &  remember  saying 
"  How  do  you  do.  Miss  Light?  I  have  brought  Mr.  Thack- 
eray, the  Author,  to  see  you  &  the  Captain  "...  blush- 
ing to  the  roots  of  my  hair  .  .  .  Thackeray  then  sat 
down  &  talked,  very  pleasantly,  with  the  old  Captain  — 
ever  &  anon  lapsing  into  reverie,  when  the  "Colonel"  and 
"Ethel,"  we  may  be  sure,  took  their  places  with  him  —  and 
then  rousing  himself  to  talk  courteously  again.  .  .  . 
When  the  fact  became  known  that  Col.  Newcome  was  to 
be  a  ''Codd"  (3),  &  that  Thackeray  had  been  making  a 
"study"  for  his  character,  it  may  be  that  there  was  a  shade 
of  jealousy  in  Codd-land.  My  friend  Codd  Larky  (4)  told 
me,  that  I  had  taken  him  to  the  wrong  man;  &  that  he 
should  have  gone  to  Captain  Nicholson,  an  old  Guardsman 
•    .    .    but  I  did  not  know  him.''' 

"And  here  is  another,"  continued  Doctor  Bridger,  "which 
I  copied  from  the  inscription  on  the  tablet  outside: 

"'In  this  room  lived  Captain 
Thomas  Light  whom 
Thackeray  visited 
when  writing  the  last 
Chapters  of  "The  Newcomes." 
—  "  'From  an  inscription  under  my  window. 

^^'Wm.  J.  B. 
"  *  House  No.  16;  Room  No.  70.' 

24 


IN  THACKERAY'S   LONDON 

*'And  here  is  yet  another  —  such  pitiful  things  occur  here 
among  our  Brothers.  Sometimes  I  write  them  down  and  file 
them  away.  Perhaps  some  day  they  will  be  found  by  some 
of  my  successors,  and  add  to  the  history  of  our  home. 
Listen  to  this;  I  will  read  it  if  you  don't  mind: 

"'Pathetic  circumstances  attach  to  the  death  of  Dr.  B., 
one  of  the  Brethren  of  Charter  House,  London,  which  took 
place  on  Tuesday  evening.  For  months  past  Dr.,  who  was 
over  eighty,  had  been  in  failing  health,  but  his  work  in 
connection  with  the  invention  of  an  electric  lamp  for  mines, 
on  which  he  had  been  engaged  for  many  years,  had  buoyed 
him  up.  The  ultimate  failure  of  his  plans  greatly  depressed 
him,  and  he  gradually  sank  and  died  in  his  rooms  in  Charter 
House. 

*'  *0n  Saturday  he  received  a  letter  from  the  Patent  Office, 
informing  him  that  his  application  for  the  taking  out  of  a 
Patent  had  been  approved,  but  he  remarked,  **  It  is  too  late." ' 

**No,  take  it  along  with  you— I  make  them  in  hectograph 
so  my  friends  can  each  have  a  copy." 

And  so,  with  the  oatmeal  eaten  —  there  had  been  enough 
for  two,  the  nephew  not  having  put  in  an  appearance  — 
and  the  tea  drank,  I  left  my  genial  host,  whose  reverence 
for  the  Colonel  was  like  my  own,  promising  to  come  again 
in  the  morning  when  he  would  show  me  over  Washhouse 
Court,  where  the  Colonel  often  walked;  through  the  cloister, 
where  Mr.  Thackeray's  and  John  Leech's  tablets  were  to  be 
seen  high  on  the  white  walls,  and  into  the  chapel,  where 
Thackeray  prayed  as  a  boy,  and  where  his  greatest  and  best 
beloved  creation  prayed  both  as  boy  and  man. 

25 


CHAPTER    III 

WHERE  THE  COLONEL  WALKED 
AND  PRAYED 


CHAPTER  III 

WHERE  THE  COLONEL  WALKED 
AND  PRAYED 

MY  GUIDE,  the  Colonel's  brother  Pensioner,  was 
waiting  for  me  the  next  morning  when  I  pushed 
open  his  door.  He  had  taken  his  cloak  from  its 
hook,  and  was  slipping  it  over  his  shoulders. 

"We  always  wear  our  gowns  when  we  walk  about  the 
courts,  but  if  you  do  not  mind,"  he  added,  with  a  laugh,  "I 
will  leave  my  hat  behind.  I  like  to  feel  the  fresh  air  on  my 
poor  scalp,"  and  he  tapped  the  bald  spot  behind  his  fore- 
head. "Let  us  go  first  through  Washhouse  Court  —  this 
way  —  it  is  only  a  step,  almost  opposite  where  we  stand." 

While  he  was  speaking  we  had  crossed  the  gravelled  space, 
dived  under  a  dark  archway,  and  were  standing  in  a  small 
square  court  that  looked  like  a  prison  yard,  so  bare,  so 
desolate,  and  so  unclimbable  was  it.  The  scarred,  soot- 
encrusted  walls  were  pock-marked  with  the  maladies  of 
centuries;  here  and  there  a  small  window  peered  out  upon 
the  desolate  open,  with  an  uncertain,  frightened  look;  some 
high,  smooth  chimneys  rose  sheer  from  the  ground  without 
a  foothold;  the  roof  came  down  with  a  sharp  slant  —  that, 
too,  was  unscalable  —  while  the  only  exit  lay  under  another 

29 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

archway,  with  an  equally  narrow  entrance.  If,  in  the  old 
days,  anybody  had  been  turned  loose  in  this  small  area,  and 
the  doors  of  both  archways  locked,  they  might  well  have 
given  up  the  ghost,  so  far  as  their  ultimate  freedom  was 
concerned. 

"Why  Washhouse  Court?"  I  asked,  conceding  in  my 
mind  the  possibility  of  stringing  clotheslines,  but  in  doubt 
about  the  tubs. 

"Because  it  is!  I  have  a  couple  of  shirts  in  there  now," 
and  he  pointed  to  a  framing  of  low  windows  and  wooden 
doors,  level  with  the  rough  stone  pavement.  "The  linen 
of  our  old  friend,  the  Colonel,  came  here  too.  We  have 
mangles  and  all  sorts  of  funny  machines  now,  but  in  his 
days  it  was  just  plain  elbow-grease,  knuckles,  and  plenty 
of  soap.  Then  it  was  known  as  "Laundry  Court,"  and,  in 
addition  to  a  washhouse,  boasted  a  brewhouse,  a  kitchen, 
bakehouse,  and  fishhouse.  Since  then  as  you  can  see,  the 
trowel  and  chisel  of  the  restorers,  have  patched  up  the  holes 
that  time  and  neglect  have  made,  but  much  of  the  old  wall, 
especially  that  part  above  the  archway,  is  quite  as  it 
appeared  in  1572  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  the  day  he  was 
arrested  in  the  great  Hall,  behind  which  I  live,  for  con- 
spiracy against  his  Queen." 

By  this  time  we  had  dived  under  the  archway  seen  in  my 
sketch,  passed  through  still  another  open  space,  and  found 
ourselves  at  last  in  the  little  ante-chapel  leading  to  the 
chapel  itself. 

Again  I  was  on  holy  ground! 

Here  the  Colonel  had  walked  to  and  from  chapel  service, 
and  in  the  same  black  Pensioner's  cloak  that  Ethel  had 

80 


JW^f'xaK- 


'    WASHHOUSE    COURT— GREY    FRIARS 


«^    t    <.    K 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

kissed.  Here,  too,  when  the  organ  had  played  them  out  of 
chapel  at  length,  Pendennis,  with  heavy  heart,  had  strolled 
with  him  on  his  way  back  to  his  room.  ''And  I  take  it 
uncommonly  kind  of  you,"  the  Colonel,  with  flushed,  wan 
face,  had  said,  "and  I  thank  God  for  you,  sir.  Why,  sir,  I 
am  as  happy  as  the  day  is  long." 

This  ante-chapel  is  but  little  changed,  and,  judging  from 
the  uneven  surfaces  of  the  several  panes  of  glass  in  the  queer 
sashes  with  rounded  tops,  the  windows  looking  out  upon 
the  adjoining  court,  must  be  the  same  as  those  that  lighted 
the  Colonel's  way.  Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  the 
flooring  of  stone  slabs,  marking  the  graves  of  the  long-ago 
dead,  was  the  very  same  which  had  reechoed  the  sound 
of  his  footfalls.  There  was  a  new  tablet,  of  course,  on 
the  opposite  wall  —  several  of  them  in  fact,  one  bearing 
the  name  of  the  Colonel's  creator  —  and  another  that  of 
John  Leech,  his  dear  friend  and  brother  Carthusian  —  or 
Cistercian,  as.  Thackeray  chooses  to  call  them.  And  there 
were  still  others,  bearing  the  names  of  Sir  Henry  Havelock, 
John  Wesley,  Roger  Williams  (founder  of  Rhode  Island), 
and  various  distinguished  Carthusians,  many  of  which  the 
Colonel  must  have  looked  on  as  he  walked  bareheaded  to 
his  prayers. 

Morning  service  was  over  when  we  entered,  and  that  cold 
hush,  which  one  sometimes  feels  on  entering  an  empty 
church,  greeted  us  —  not  the  hush  of  death,  but  rather  one 
of  sleep.  Even  the  effigy  of  old  Thomas  Sutton,  to  whose 
princely  munificence  the  Brothers  owe  their  homes  and 
support,  appeared  to  be  more  asleep  than  dead  these  two 
hundred  years.    And  so  did  the  organ,  high  up  above  my 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

head;  and  the  prayer-books  lining  the  ledges  of  the  pews  — 
all  seemed  quietly  dozing. 

It  has  every  right  to  go  to  sleep  if  it  pleases,  this  relic 
of  the  Carthusian  Monks,  for  most  of  it  dates  back  to 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Since  that  time 
the  north  and  west  walls  have  been  rebuilt,  and  the  open 
arches  erected  by  Thomas  Sutton's  executors,  to  make  room 
for  his  remains.  As  in  the  Colonel's  day,  so  now:  **The 
chapel  is  lighted,  and  the  Founders'  Tomb,  with  its  gro- 
tesque carvings,  monsters,  heraldries,  darkles  and  shines 
with  the  most  wonderful  shadows  and  lights.  There  he 
lies,  Fundator  Noster,  in  his  ruff  and  gown,  awaiting  the 
great  Examination  Day." 

In  the  pavement  near  by,  there  is,  among  others,  the 
gravestone  of  Thomas  Walker,  Head  Master  1679-1728,  who 
had  Addison,  Steel,  and  Wesley  for  his  pupils.  In  the  belfry 
above,  hangs  the  great  bell,  recast  in  1631.  This  tolls  the 
curfew  at  8  p.  m.  in  winter,  and  9  p.  m.  in  summer,  the  num- 
ber of  its  strokes  corresponding  to  that  of  the  Brothers 
within  the  hospital.  It  was  to  the  strokes  of  this  very  bell 
that  Thomas  Ncwcome's  hand  kept  time,  beating  feebly 
outside  his  bed. 

I  was  not  sorry  that  just  here  my  friend  and  guide  bade 
me  good-bye.  He  had  work  to  do  —  a  service  to  hold  in  a 
small  church  outside  the  grounds,  so  he  told  me  with  a 
certain  pride  in  his  voice,  as  if  reminding  me  that  he  was 
not  wholly  dependent  on  the  charity  of  the  old  fellow  whose 
bones  were  enclosed  in  the  marble  tomb.  I,  too,  had  work 
to  do.  I  had  memories  and  traditions  and  scenes  out  of 
my  boyhood  days  to  talk  over  with  myself,  and  I  had  a 

S4 


^: 


•    •    •   • 


t      •  «     t 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

sketch  to  make  —  one  rather  difficult  because  of  its  cross 
lights,  and  because  of  a  big  column  which  stood  out  clear 
from  the  gloom  of  the  choir  loft  and  the  deep-shadowed 
recess  beneath  the  gallery. 

But  even  then  I  was  not  alone.  The  chapel  was  peopled. 
It  was  Founders'  Day  once  more  —  Pendennis  beside  me, 
intent  on  the  ceremonies. 

"Yonder  sit  forty  cherry-cheeked  boys,  thinking  about 
home  and  holidays  to-morrow.  Yonder  sit  some  threescore 
old  gentlemen  pensioners  of  the  hospital,  listening  to  the 
prayers  and  the  psalms.  You  hear  them  coughing  feebly 
in  the  twilight  —  the  old  reverend  black-gowns.  .  .  . 
A  plenty  of  candles  lights  up  this  chapel,  and  this  scene  of 
age  and  youth,  and  early  memories,  and  pompous  death. 
How  solemn  the  well-remembered  prayers  are,  here  uttered 
again  in  the  place  where  in  childhood  we  used  to  hear 
them!    .     .     . 

"  *  23.  The  steps  of  a  good  man  are  ordered  by  the  Lord: 
and  he  delighteth  in  his  way. 

** '  24.  Though  he  fall,  he  shall  not  be  utterly  cast  down: 
for  the  Lord  upholdeth  him  with  his  hand. 

*'*25.  I  have  been  young,  and  now  am  old:  yet  have  I 
not  seen  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  their 
bread.' 

"As  we  came  to  this  verse,  I  chanced  to  look  up  from  my 
book  toward  the  swarm  of  black-coated  pensioners  and 
among  them  —  among  them  —  sat  Thomas  Newcome. 

"His  dear  old  head  was  bent  down  over  his  prayer-book; 
there  was  no  mistaking  him.  He  wore  the  black  gown  of 
the  pensioners  of  the  Hospital  of  Grey  Friars.    His  Order 

37 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  the  Bath  was  on  his  breast.  He  stood  there  among  the 
poor  brethren,  uttering  the  responses  to  the  psalm.  The 
steps  of  this  good  man  had  been  ordered  hither  by  Heaven's 
decree:  to  this  almshouse!  Here  it  was  ordained  that  a  life 
all  love,  and  kindness,  and  honour  should  end !  I  heard  no 
more  of  prayers,  and  psalms,  and  sermon  after  that.  How 
dared  I  to  be  in  a  place  of  mark,  and  he  yonder  among  the 
poor?  Oh,  pardon,  you  noble  soul!  I  ask  forgiveness  of 
you  for  being  of  a  world  that  has  so  treated  you  —  you  my 
better,  you  the  honest,  and  gentle,  and  good !  I  thought  the 
service  would  never  end,  or  the  organist's  voluntaries,  or 
the  preacher's  homily." 

Working  away  on  my  sketching  stool,  transferring  the 
''darkles  and  lights,"  of  the  chapel's  lines  and  masses  to 
my  paper,  no  wonder  that  I  lost  for  the  time  all  sense  of 
proportion,  and  confounded  fancy  with  fact.  I  had  always 
known  I  should  meet  the  Colonel  just  as  I  believe  I  shall 
yet  meet  Sam  Weller  and  Micawber  and  Dot  Perrybingle, 
and  so,  when  an  old  brother,  in  his  black  gown,  stole  in 
while  I  worked  and  sat  down  noiselessly  in  a  pew  to  my 
right,  his  face  buried  in  his  hands  as  he  prayed,  I  was  con- 
vinced that  he  was  none  other  than  my  hero,  until  he 
raised  his  head  and  I  caught  sight  of  a  gray  beard.  Even 
then  I  worked  on,  dallying  over  my  surface,  lifting  my  head 
for  confirmation  every  time  I  heard  a  footfall  in  the  ante- 
chapel  beyond;  forever  on  the  watch  for  the  thin,  military 
figure,  with  the  pale,  smooth  face. 


88 


c  «    t      « 

•      •    •    • 
•    «     <    • 


•  t     « 


•    p  . 


\ 


I 


CHAPTER  rV 
SMITHFIELD   MARKET 


CHAPTER  IV 
SMITHFIELD  MARKET 

WE  MADE  the  ascent  of  Snow  Hill,"  writes  Thack- 
eray in  "The  Newcomes."  "We  passed  by  the 
miry  pens  of  Smithfield.  We  travel  through  the 
Street  of  St.  John  and  presently  reach  the  gateway  in 
Cistercian  Square  where  lies  the  old  Hospital  of  Grey 
Friars." 

This  is  the  route  Pendennis's  cab  took  from  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  Ethel  and  he  sitting  inside,  on  the  way  to  see  Thomas 
Newcome,  and  this,  too,  was  my  own  route  except  that  I 
occupied  a  modern  up-to-date  taxi,  and  Evins,  my  chauf- 
feur, was  at  the  wheel.  The  "miry  pens,"  filled  with  the 
cattle  of  the  period,  are  replaced  now  by  high  glass-covered 
sheds  under  which  pass  huge  wagons  drawn  by  great 
Normandy  horses,  loaded  down  with  most  of  the  chops, 
breakfast  bacon,  and  roast  beef  of  old  England.  It  was 
raining,  as  usual,  and  Evins  had  backed  my  moving  studio 
under  the  eaves  of  a  protecting  shed.  The  crowd  was  so 
dense,  and  the  movement  of  wheel  and  hoof  so  constant, 
that  I  waited  until  the  greater  part  of  the  early  morning 
rush  was  over  before  commencing  my  sketch. 

"Do  you  know  this  part  of  London,  Evins?" 

41 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"Not  much,  sir.  We  don't  get  out  here  often.  Round 
the  Empire  Theatre,  or  maybe  out  by  St.  Johns  Wood  late 
at  night,  or  Paddington  way,  or  Kensington,  but  this  is  new 
to  me.  I  was  never  to  Charter  House  until  I  took  you  there 
three  days  ago.  I  been  a-reading  up  about  it  in  a  book  one 
of  my  pals  has  at  the  garage." 

''  One  of  Mr.  Thackeray's?  " 

*'Yes,  I  think  that  was  the  writer's  name  —  something 
about  an  officer  called  Newcome.'* 

"Do  you  get  a  chance  to  read  much?" 

"No,  sir  —  can't  say  I  do  —  barring  the  Mirror  and 
sometimes  the  News.    I  been  around  though  considerable." 

"In  England?" 

"No,  farther  than  that." 

"America?" 

"No,  I  wish  I  had.    I  was  in  Cape  Town  for  a  bit.'* 

"What  were  you  doing  there?    Driving?" 

"Not  all  the  time,  sir.  I  was  laid  up  for  a  while  —  had  a 
bad  crack  on  my  knee  —  got  a  twist  in  it  —  not  much  of  a 
knee  now,"  and  he  tapped  it  with  his  closed  hand,  "especi- 
ally in  bad  weather  —  been  bothering  me  all  the  week." 

"What  happened?    Thrown  off  your  box?" 

"Not  exactly,  sir,  but  it  felt  like  it  when  they  picked  me  up. 
Then  I  got  a  clip  on  my  ear  —  you  can  see  it,  sir,  if  you  look 
—  little  ragged  yet." 

"In  the  hospital,  were  you?" 

"Yes,  for  six  weeks  or  so." 

"  What  happened  then?  " 

"Oh,  I  had  served  my  time  and  they  sent  me  home." 

"The  company  you  worked  for?" 

42 


•  ••    • 

•  •  *    • 
«  «   «    • 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"No,  the  Head  Surgeon.  There  wasn't  many  of  my 
company  left." 

A  light  began  to  dawn  upon  me.  I  took  another  look  at 
his  face,  and  the  way  his  head,  with  the  ragged  ear,  sat  on 
his  broad  shoulders,  and  the  clear,  steady  gaze  with  which  he 
regarded  me. 

"Do  you  mean  you  were  in  the  army,  Evins?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"During  the  Boer  War?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"And  where  did  you  get  that  crack?" 

"At  Spion  Kop,  sir.  I  had  another  through  my  sleeve 
that  burned  the  skin  off  me  arm,  but  it  didn't  amount  to 
anything.  It  was  pretty  warm  for  us,  sir,  for  a  while. 
Shall  I  back,  sir?  The  rain's  clearin'  up  a  bit,  and  there's 
only  a  few  of  the  wagons  left.  Maybe  we  can  get  one  of 
them  to  stand  still." 

I  did  not  answer  for  some  minutes.  "England  is  full  of 
just  such  men,"  I  said  to  myself;  "have  to  use  a  corkscrew 
to  get  anything  out  of  them."  I  have  known  dozens  just 
like  him.  The  last  thing  any  one  of  them  wants  to  talk 
about  is  the  part  he  played  in  some  drama  in  which  every 
man  was  a  hero  —  except  in  his  own  opinion. 

My  chaff  eur  had  loomed  up  into  another  and  a  more  dis- 
tinct personality  —  one  that  inspired  a  certain  deference. 
Here  was  I,  riding  around  London  with  a  fellow  who  opened 
the  door  of  my  vehicle  like  a  lackey,  touched  his  hat  when  I 
gave  him  an  order,  brought  me  beer-  and  sandwiches  when 
I  was  hungry,  sharpened  my  charcoals  when  I  was  hurried, 
and  who  ten  years  ago  had  been  dragged  off  the  worst  battle- 

45 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

field  of  the  war  with  the  ravellings  of  three  bullets  clinging 
to  his  person.  I  soon  found  myself  under  considerable 
restraint  in  not  shaking  hands  with  him,  and  I  would  have 
done  so  had  not  a  certain  look  in  his  eyes  warned  me  that, 
for  the  time  being  at  least,  he  was  my  servant,  and  that 
each  one  of  us  must  keep  his  own  place. 

This  same  look  was  in  his  eye  when  I  finished  my  sketch 
of  the  Market,  and  rose.  It  rather  checked  my  enthusiasm, 
and  I  merely  said,  "Lucky  you  got  out  with  a  whole  skin," 
and  bade  him  drive  on  to  St.  Bartholomew's  the  Great. 

As  we  approached  its  site  from  around  the  wide  Square, 
my  eye  ran  along  the  bare  wall  of  a  great  building,  commer- 
cial or  otherwise,  until  it  rested  on  a  small  archway  —  the 
only  entrance  from  this  side  to  the  church  itself.  Leaving 
the  taxi  on  the  curb,  we  dodged  under  its  arch,  skirted  a 
narrow  pavement,  flanked  by  a  damp,  mouldy  graveyard, 
frowned  on  by  a  row  of  dingy,  soot-begrimed  houses; 
then  crossing  a  little  dip  in  the  sidewalk  we  made  our 
way  through  the  small  swinging  doors,  into  the  narrow 
vestibule,  and  so  on  into  the  church. 

If  Mr.  Thackeray  or  any  one  of  his  characters  had  aught 
to  do  with  St.  Bartholomew's  the  Great,  there  is  nothing  I 
can  find  in  a  diligent  search  through  his  published  books 
to  prove  it.  And  yet,  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  he 
could  have  been  unconscious  of  its  dignity  and  beauty  even 
when  he  was  a  boy  at  Grey  Friars  School;  and  later  on, 
when  he  would  revisit  his  old  haunts  on  Founders'  Day, 
reviving  his  early  memories  of  the  places  round  about  its 
quiet  courts.    Nor  was  it  too  far  away  from  those  quiet 

46 


*.      • 


«     • »  • 

•  •     •  • 

•  •  •  •  •    • 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

courts  themselves  for  Thomas  Newcome  not  to  have  made 
the  church  a  resting  place  when  he  took  his  morning  walks 
abroad. 

I  choose  to  think  so  at  any  rate.  But  if  these  excuses  do 
not  suffice,  then  I  will  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  —  it  was  be- 
cause I  could  not  resist  its  beauty. 

Other  churches  have  I  studied  in  my  wanderings;  many 
and  various  cathedrals,  basilicas  and  mosques  have  de- 
lighted me.  I  know,  too,  the  colour  and  the  value  of  tapes- 
try and  rich  hangings,  of  mosaics,  porphyry  and  verd 
antiques;  of  fluted  alabaster  and  the  delicate  tracery  of  the 
arabesque;  but  the  velvety  quality  of  London  soot  when 
applied  to  the  rough  surfaces  of  rudely  chiselled  stone, 
and  the  soft  loveliness  gained  by  grime  and  smoke,  came 
to  me  as  a  revelation. 

This  rich  black  which,  like  a  tropical  fungus,  grows  and 
spreads  through  its  interior,  hiding  under  its  soft,  caressing 
touch  the  rough  angles  and  insistent  edges  of  the  Norman,  is 
what  the  bloom  is  to  the  grape;  what  the  dark  purpling  is  to 
the  plum,  mellowing  from  sight  the  brilliancy  of  the  under 
skin.  And  there  are  wide  coverings  of  it,  too,  as  if  some 
master  decorator  had  wielded  a  great  coal,  and,  at  one 
sweep  of  his  hand,  had  rubbed  its  glorious  black  into  every 
crevice,  crack,  and  cranny  of  wall,  column,  and  arch. 

Certain  it  is  that  no  other  medium  than  the  one  I  have 
used  could  give  any  idea  of  its  charm.  Neither  oil, 
water-colour  nor  pastel  will  transmit  it  —  no,  nor  the  dry 
point  or  bitten  plate.  The  soot  of  centuries,  the  fogs  of 
countless  Novembers,  the  smoke  of  a  thousand  firesides, 
were  the  pigments  which  the  Master  Painter  set  upon  his 

49 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

palette  in  this  task  of  giving  us  one  exquisitely  beautiful 
interior  wholly  in  black  and  white.  As  I  worked  on  I 
caught  Evins  pausing  now  and  then  in  his  silent  tiptoeing 
about  its  aisles,  fingering  the  walls  here  and  there,  as  if 
wondering  whether  its  ancient  smudge  would  come  off. 

"Like  an  old  chimney,  ain't  it,  sir?"  he  remarked,  when 
he  had  resumed  his  place  beside  me.  ''Looks  as  if  they 
had  built  a  fire  in  here  somewhars,  and  stopped  up  the  flue. 
Rum  old  place,  anyway;  I  never  see  it  afore.  Pretty  old, 
ain't  it,  sir?" 

I  nodded  assent  and  worked  on,  giving  him  in  a  staccato 
form  (for  I  cannot  talk  when  I  am  at  work)  such  informa- 
tion from  various  guide  books  telling  of  the  interior  of  the 
famous  church  as  I  had  gleaned  the  night  before. 

One  paragraph  at  the  bottom  of  a  page  came  to  my  mind, 
upon  which  I  dilated  with  confidence,  our  ears  at  the  mo- 
ment being  filled  with  the  sound  of  an  anvil  and  hammer, 
reverberating  through  an  open  door.  The  noise  came  from 
a  shop  which  seemed  to  be  part  and  parcel  of  the  edifice 
itself  —  was  a  part,  so  the  sexton,  or  clerk,  to  whom  I  ap- 
pealed told  me  in  passing,  adding  that  it  had  always  been  a 
blacksmith  shop,  and  was  still,  and  would  continue  to  be 
until  the  end  of  time.  Indeed,  its  attempted  removal  had 
so  seriously  endangered  the  repairs,  completed  some  fifty 
years  before,  that  the  authorities  had  been  compelled  to  let 
the  shop  stay  —  a  confirmation  which  established  me  at  once 
as  an  oracle  in  my  chauifeur's  mind. 

Evins  drank  it  all  in,  putting  questions  now  and  then, 
most  of  which,  being  outside  my  line  of  research,  brought 
me  up  standing,  the  very  obliging  and  learned  clerk  having 

50 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

gone  to  his  luncheon.  I  could,  of  course,  have  invented  an 
answer,  and  indulged  in  glittering  generalties,  which  would 
have  satisfied  him.  I  could  have  parried  the  questions;  but 
I  did  none  of  these  things.  I  simply  threw  up  my  hands. 
It  seemed  the  only  honest  way  out.  It  might  not  have 
appeared  to  me  in  that  light  the  day  before,  but  it  did  now. 
Yesterday  I  was  driving  around  with  just  a  plain  chauffeur, 
number  something  or  other,  in  a  W.  &  G.  taxi.  To-day  I 
was  the  guest,  or  comrade,  or  companion,  of  a  man  who 
would  have  been  wearing  the  D.  S.  0.  had  a  reporter  come 
along  at  the  right  moment  and  spelt  his  name  correctly 
in  the  despatches  —  a  man,  too,  who  thought  so  little  of 
the  incident  that  I  had  to  use  a  pair  of  nippers  and  a  force 
pump  to  extract  from  him  the  slightest  detail  regarding  the 
occurrence. 

It  was  now  three  o'clock,  and  yet  my  sketch  was  still 
unfinished ;  for  church  architecture  must  be  drawn  —  not 
guessed  at. 

The  taxi,  of  course,  required  neither  food  or  water,  but 
the  chauffeur  might. 

"Getting  hungry,  Evins?" 

"Well,  yes,  a  little  peckish,  sir.  I  was  up  at  six  —  but  it 
don't  matter;  keep  on  —  I  can  stand  it  if  you  can." 

"I  would  send  you  for  some  sandwiches  and  a  couple  of 
bottles  of  beer  if  it  wasn't  a  church  —  but  of  course " 

"No,  of  course  not,  sir.  It's  bad  luck  to  picnic  on  a 
tomb." 

"And  then  again,  Evins,  Fve  got  a  better  idea.  I'll  be 
through  in  half  an  hour,  and  then  we'll  drive  down  Holborn, 
near  Staple  Inn,  and  get  a  chop  and  a  mug  apiece." 

51 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  and  he  touched  his  hat. 

All  of  this  happened,  even  to  a  second  mug  apiece,  the 
last  accompanied  by  my  cigar  case  which  1  sent  to  his 
table  by  the  waiter  with  a  dupUcate  of  the  afternoon  paper 
I  was  reading. 

And  so  a  sort  of  comradeship  was  established  between  us 
—  one  that,  as  the  days  went  by,  grew  closer  and  more 
human. 


52 


CHAPTER  V 
STAPLE  INN 


CHAPTER  V 
STAPLE  INN 

THE  wet  streets  and  sidewalks  of  London,  glistening 
under  its  silver-gray  sky,  little  rivulets  of  quick- 
silver escaping  everywhere,  are  always  a  delight  to 
me.  When  with  these  I  get  a  background  of  —  and  I  al- 
ways do  —  flat  masses  of  quaint  buildings,  all  detail  lost 
in  the  haze  of  mist  and  smoke,  my  delight  rises  to  enthu- 
siasm. Nowhere  else  in  the  world  are  the  "values"  so 
marvellously  preserved.  You  start  your  foreground  — 
say  a  figure,  or  umbrella,  or  a  cab  —  with  a  stroke  of  jet 
black,  and  the  perspective  instantly  fades  into  grays  of 
steeple,  dome  or  roof,  so  delicate  and  vapoury  that  there  is 
hardly  a  shade  of  difference  between  earth  and  sky. 

And  charcoal  is  again  the  one  only  medium  which  will 
express  it.  Charcoal  is  the  unhampered,  the  free,  the  per- 
sonal, the  individual  medium.  No  water,  no  oil,  no  palette, 
no  squeezing  of  tubes,  nor  mixing  of  tints;  no  scraping, 
scumbling,  or  other  dilatory  and  exasperating  necessities. 
Just  a  piece  of  coal,  the  size  of  a  small  pocket  pencil,  held 
flat  between  the  thumb  and  forefinger,  a  sheet  of  paper,  and 
then  "let  go."  Yes,  one  thing  more  —  care  must  be  taken 
to  have  this  thumb  and  forefinger  fastened  to  a  sure,  know- 

55 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

ing  and  fearless  hand,  worked  by  an  arm  which  plays  easily 
and  loosely  in  a  ball-socket  set  firmly  near  your  backbone. 
To  carry  out  the  metaphor,  the  steam  of  your  enthusiasm, 
kept  in  working  order  by  the  safety-valve  of  your  experience, 
and  regulated  by  the  ball-governor  of  your  art  knowledge  — 
such  as  composition  drawing,  mass  and  light  and  shade 
—  is  then  turned  on. 

Now  you  can  "let  go,"  and  in  the  fullest  sense,  or  you 
will  never  arrive.  My  own  experience  has  taught  me  that 
if  an  outdoor  charcoal  sketch,  covering  and  containing 
all  a  man  can  see  —  and  he  should  neither  record  nor  ex- 
plain anything  more  —  is  not  completely  finished  in  three 
hours,  it  can  never  be  finished  by  the  same  man  in  three 
days  or  three  years. 

And  London  is  the  best  place  I  know  for  practising  the 
art  —  especially  if  it  be  raining,  and  there  was  no  question 
that  it  was  raining  on  this  particular  morning  in  Holborn, 
when  Evins  backed  his  taxi  into  a  position  from  which  I 
could  get  the  old  Staple  Inn  pitched  forward  against  a 
luminous  gray  sky,  its  gables  reflected  in  a  stream  of  silver, 
the  sidewalk  and  broad  road  thronged  with  pedestrians 
picking  their  way  amidst  an  endless  procession  of  wheeled 
traffic. 

The  Inn  itself  I  had  sketched  the  year  before  —  that  is 
the  garden  part  of  it,  especially  the  row  of  time-blackened 
buildings  holding  the  rooms  where  Mr.  Grewgious  in  "Ed- 
win Drood"  had  his  office.  Its  staggering  street  front  was, 
however,  new  to  my  coal. 

St.  Bartholomew's  Church  might  have  been  debatable 
ground,  but  here  I  am  sure  of  my  facts.    Opposite  Staple 

56 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Inn  stands,  or  did  stand  but  a  few  years  ago,  the  famous 
old  Furnivals  Inn,  where  Dickens  had  his  quarters,  and 
where  he  wrote  the  opening  chapters  of  '*  Pickwick."  Hither 
Thackeray  betook  himself  one  fine  morning  with  a  port- 
folio of  sketches  under  his  arm.  He  had  read  the  first 
numbers  of  that  immortal  book,  and  as  he  was  convinced 
he  would  never  amount  to  anything  as  an  author  himself, 
he  had  come  to  beg  of  Dickens  the  chance  to  earn  an  honest 
penny  as  an  illustrator.  Mr.  Dickens  was  just  entering 
into  that  great  fame  as  a  writer  of  fiction  which  has  never 
dimmed  from  that  time.  The  young  artist  had  scarcely 
attempted  literature,  and  had  still  to  tread  the  paths  of 
obscurity.  .  .  .  Some  years  later,  when  both  men 
were  famous,  Thackeray  told  the  story  at  a  dinner  of  the 
Royal  Academy  at  which  Mr.  Dickens  was  present. 

"I  can  remember  when  Mr.  Dickens  was  a  very  young 
man,  and  had  commenced  delighting  the  world  with  some 
charming  humorous  works  in  covers,  which  were  coloured 
light  green  and  came  out  once  a  month,  that  this  young 
man  wanted  an  artist  to  illustrate  his  writings;  and  I  recol- 
lect walking  up  to  his  chambers  in  Furnival's  Inn,  with  two 
or  three  drawings  in  my  hand,  which,  strange  to  say,  he  did 
not  find  suitable.  But  for  the  unfortunate  blight  which 
came  over  my  artistical  existence,  it  would  have  been  my 
pride  and  my  pleasure  to  have  endeavoured  one  day  to  find 
a  place  on  these  walls  for  one  of  my  performances." 

It  was  not  until  a  year  had  passed  that  Thackeray  be- 
gan seriously  to  devote  himself  to  literary  labour;  and  his 
articles,  published  over  a  nom  de  plume,  contain  the  best 
evidences  that  he  felt  no  shadow  of  ill-will  for  a  rejec- 

57 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

tion  which  he  always  good-humouredly  alluded  to  as  "Mr. 
Pickwick's  lucky  escape." 

As  to  the  Inn  itself,  we  learn  that  the  front,  shown  in  my 
sketch,  dates  from  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century; 
and  the  outer  buildings  and  courtyard  from  between 
1729-59.  That  it  used  to  be  known  as  "le  Stapled  Halle," 
and  was,  in  its  origin,  the  house  of  a  guild  in  some  way 
responsible  for  the  collection  of  the  duties  on  wool  —  the 
data  ending  with  the  announcement  that  in  one  of  the  top 
rooms  —  quite  under  the  roof  in  fact  —  Dr.  Johnson  wrote 
"Rasselas." 

In  1884  the  freehold  was  sold,  and  the  insurance  com- 
pany across  the  way  took  possession,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  with  a  certain  sense  of  their  responsibilities.  Per- 
haps their  conscience  had  begun  to  smite  them  after  they 
had  wiped  dear  old  Furnival's  Inn  off  the  planet,  erecting 
in  its  stead  a  modern  combination  of  brick,  stone,  and  slate. 
For,  when  they  looked  Staple  Inn  over,  they  then  and 
there,  God  bless  them!  resolved  to  prop  it  up  as  best  they 
could,  to  keep  it  from  sprawling  its  full  length  on  the  side- 
walk.   And  a  very  creditable  restoration  it  is. 

This,  let  me  say,  applies  only  to  the  partly  modernized 
street  front.  Once  inside  the  gateway,  and  back  you  go 
hundreds  of  years,  three  hundred  I  am  sure  in  the  second 
court  where  Mr.  Grewgious  earned  his  bread — or  tried  to  — 
in  some  chambers  over  the  main  door  of  a  dull  building, 
mouldy  with  grime,  its  windows  blinking  in  the  gloom  of  the 
desolate  garden,  set  out  with  seats,  and  miserable,  droopy, 
disheartened  trees  which  stand  aimlessly  about.  A  queer 
gate  leads  out  somewhere  into  the  unknown  (to  me)  sug- 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

gesting  a  short  cut  to  somewhere  else.  I  can  well  believe 
that  the  snubbed  and  humiliated  artist,  after  such  a  rebuff, 
crossed  the  street  to  avoid  the  gaze  of  passersby,  dodging 
into  this  same  court,  where  he  wandered  about  in  its  grave- 
yard silence  trying  to  pull  himself  together;  and  so  on, 
and  out  the  rear  gate  to  his  lodgings  in  Great  Coram  Street, 
thoroughly  convinced  that  life  for  him  was  a  failure,  and 
that  neither  literature  nor  art  (which  last  he  loved  best) 
could  support  him. 

Something  which  might  have  been  as  disheartening 
happened  to  me  too  at  Staple  Inn. 

/  came  very  near  being  locked  up. 

Before  getting  ready  to  sketch  in  the  streets  of  any 
city,  I  invariably  look  up  the  constituted  authorities.  This 
habit  of  mine  has  given  me  the  freedom  of  Constantinople, 
Moscow,  and  Sofia  —  three  cities  where  even  the  sight  of  a 
white  umbrella  is  enough  to  call  out  the  guard.  I  haven't 
the  space  to  tell  about  it  here,  but  it  would  be  mighty  in- 
teresting reading  if  I  had. 

This  particular  morning  I  began  by  sending  Evins,  with 
my  compliments,  and  visiting  card  — a  wonderful  thing  is 
a  visiting  card  to  people  who  have  never  seen  one,  and 
policemen  are  seldom  society  men  —  with  the  request  that 
he  would  "step  lively,"  as  I  was  beginning  work  and  wanted 
to  know  just  where  his  Bobbyship  would  permit  me  to  place 
my  taxi. 

"Anywhere  ye  like,  sir  —  big  wide  street  —  and  ye  won't 
be  in  the  way,"  and  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  he  bit  off  the 
end  of  the  cigar  that,  in  parting,  I  had  handed  him,  and 
kept  on  up  the  street. 

61 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

There  are  a  lot  of  people  in  Holborn  who  have  nothing  to 
do.  This  was  their  "star"  morning,  and  before  my  easel 
was  up,  those  whose  heads  were  not  jammed  in  the  side 
windows,  were  crawling  over  the  wheels  and  top.  Evins's 
efforts  to  scrape  most  of  them  off  resulted  in  considerable 
back-talk  in  strong  Cockney  dialect,  interspersed  with 
flashes  of  profanity.  At  this  another  Bobby  appeared,  this 
time  in  the  offing,  a  large,  well-set  up  Bobby,  with  a  waist- 
line that  was  wider  than  his  shoulders. 

"Ye  can't  stop  there,"  I  heard  him  call,  and  out  went  the 
flat  of  his  hand  in  protest.  The  upheld  fist  of  a  policeman 
we  know  about  —  and  also  the  outstretched  finger  —  one 
means  fight  and  the  other  "now  will  you  be  good,"  but  the 
open  hand  held  flat,  is  the  barricade  of  the  Commune  behind 
which  he  proposes  to  fight  to  the  death. 

"Ask  the  officer  to  kindly  come  to  the  taxi,"  I  called 
through  the  window  —  as  I  reached  for  my  cigar  case  — 
the  rain  was  coming  down  in  sheets. 

"He  says  he  won't,  and  he'll  summons  both  of  us  if  we 
don't  move  on,"  Evins  shouted  back. 

I  got  out. 

"Officer,"  I  began,  giving  him  the  same  military  salute 
I  always  accord  to  potentates  and  kings,  "I  have  already 
got  permission  from  one  of  your  men  who " 

"Well,  ye  can't  git  none  from  me.  I  tell  ye  to  move  on; 
take  an  act  of  Parliament  to  let  ye  keep  ia  cab  there  blocking 
up  the  street." 

"But  I " 

"Well,  there  ain't  no  buts;  you  just " 

Evins  sidled  up.    He  had  a  bad  glint  in  his  eye,  and  the 

62 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

line  of  his  mouth  had  so  straightened  that  it  looked  like  a 
healed  sabre  cut. 

"There  ain't  none  of  your  men  that  ain't  been  obliging 
to  the  gentleman  since  we  been  to  work  (I  inwardly  thanked 
him  for  that),  and  I  don't  see  why  you  should  put " 

"Well,  it  ain't  for  you  to  see.  I  get  my  orders  —  are 
ye  going  to  move,  or  shall  I " 

"Hold  on,  Evins!"  I  said.  These  fellows  with  balls  in 
their  legs  often  get  mixed  as  to  whom  they  are  fighting; 
and  then  again,  a  London  Bobby  is  backed  by  the  whole 
British  Empire.  "Just  one  moment,  officer;  where  is  your 
nearest  police  station?" 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  it?"  He  had  evidently 
begun  to  take  my  measure,  for  the  sentence  was  finished  in 
a  tone  bordering  on  respectful  toleration. 

"Nothing  to  you  perhaps,  but  a  lot  to  me.  You  are  the 
first  policeman  in  all  London  who  has  not  been  particularly 
polite.  If  my  cab  is  in  the  wrong  place  I'll  move  it  some- 
where else  —  anywhere  you  say.  If  you  can't  give  me  this 
permission,  I'll  find  somebody  who  will.    Where  will  I  go?" 

To  tell  the  truth,  with  all  my  bravado  I  was  shaking  in  my 
shoes.  But  I  knew  I  had  to  back  up  Evins  in  some  way 
—  comrades  on  the  same  battlefield,  so  to  speak  —  or  Fd 
lose  my  chauffeur's  respect,  and  that  would  be  worse  than 
being  locked  up. 

"Down  by  the  Viaduct  —  and  much  good  will  it  do  ye." 

"I  know  it,  sir,"  said  Evins  behind  his  hand.  "I  was  run 
in  there  myself  once  for  speedin'." 

Into  the  taxi  again,  the  crowd  pressing  closer,  wondering 
what  it  was  all  about;  a  whirl  through  streaming  streets. 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

and  we  pulled  up  in  front  of  the  customary  overhead  lan- 
tern. 

Two  policemen  guarded  the  door. 

"Is  the  inspector  in?" 

"Who  wants  him?" 

"Take  him  this  card,  and  say  that  a  gentleman  from  New 
York  wants  to  see  him  at  once." 

I  could  put  on  all  the  airs  I  happened  to  have  about  me 
now  —  at  least  until  I  got  inside. 

"This  way,  sir."  The  "sir"  was  encouraging.  I  was 
not  to  be  thrown  out  anyway  —  that  is,  not  neck  and  heels. 

A  short,  stockily  built  man  of  fifty,  in  a  loose  blue  jacket, 
and  whose  calm  eyes  had  uncovered  every  act  of  my  life 
in  the  first  glance,  advanced  to  meet  me,  my  card  in  his 
hand. 

"What  is  it?"  — not  "Who  have  I  the  honour?"  or 
"What  can  I  do  for  you?"  but  just  "What  is  it?" 

I  fell  at  once  into  telegraphic  abbreviation. 

"First  officer  —  Holborn  —  permitted  me  to  sketch  old 
Staple  Inn  from  taxi  —  second  officer  drove  me  away  — 
said  blocking  up  street  —  came  to  you  in  consequence." 

Another  exact  caliper  gaze.  He  was  conning  over  my 
ancestry  now,  trying  to  find  out  whether  any  of  them  were 
hanged. 

"Where  was  your  taxi?" 

"Curb  of  street  below  Inn." 

"The  widest  part?" 

I  nodded. 

"Any  crowd?" 

"Yes,  but  rain  kept  them  moving." 

64 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"Ugh!"  The  sound  of  this  word  cannot  be  given  with 
any  vowels  or  consonants  with  which  I  am  familiar.  As 
near  as  I  could  judge  it  meant  confidence  in  my  statements, 
qualified  disgust  at  the  stand  taken  by  the  second  Bobby, 
and  a  desire  to  see  me  through. 

*'Have  you  any  complaint  to  make  of  the  officer?'* 

"No.    He  was  only  doing  his  duty  —  as  he  saw  it." 

The  eye  relaxed  its  grip.  He  was  now  convinced  of  the 
unblemished  life  of  my  ancestors  —  my  tactful  reply  did 
the  business. 

He  strode  to  the  telephone. 

Buzz  —  buzz. 

More  buzz,  buzz  —  a  distant  buzzing  —  up  Holborn  way, 
I  afterward  discovered. 

".     .     .    Well,  that's  pretty  wide  there." 

Buzz,  Buzz. 

"Yes." 

Then  he  turned  to  me.  "You  can  go  back.  The  officer 
has  his  instructions." 

That  was  a  great  shout  which  went  up  from  the  crowd 
when  Evins,  with  his  face  one  broad,  illimitable  smile, 
whirled  our  cab  into  place  again! 

"Got  square  with  that  Yarmouth  bloater,"  was  all  he 
said. 


65 


CHAPTER  VI 
NO.  36  ONSLOW  SQUARE 


CHAPTER  VI 
NO.  36  ONSLOW  SQUARE 

1WISH  I  could  have  seen  inside,  for  here  it  was  that 
Thackeray  Uved  from  1853  to  1861.  "The  den  in 
which  he  wrote,"  says  Mr.  Crowe,  ''was  very  cheerful; 
its  windows  commanded  a  view  of  the  old  avenue  of  elm 
trees.  The  walls  were  decked  with  wonderful  water- 
colour  scenes  by  his  favourite,  Mr.  Bennet,  and  quite  in  a 
central  place  was  the  beautiful  mezzotint  of  Sir  Joshua's 
*  Little  Girl  in  the  Snow,'  a  playful  terrier  and  robin  red- 
breast as  her  companions.  As  a  change  he  would  at  times 
prefer  the  Sunflower  room  and  dictate  while  lounging  on  an 
ottoman  —  too  often  battling  with  pain  in  later  days.  The 
little  bronze  statuette  of  George  IV  on  the  mantelpiece  had 
the  look  of  an  ironical  genius  loci,  when  the  work  of  ham- 
mering into  the  lectures  of  the  Four  Georges  was  on  the 
anvil." 

I  could  only  look  up  at  the  windows,  as  many  another 
pilgrim  has  done.  But  my  imagination,  at  least,  was  not 
barred  an  entrance  by  their  protective  panes.  On  the  other 
side  of  them  the  great  man  had  written  the  closing  chapters 
of  "The  Newcomes,"  all  of  "The  Virginians,"  part  of 
"Philip,"  "The  Roundabout  Papers,"  and  "Four  Georges." 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

His  private  secretary,  Mr.  James  Hbdder,  has  told  us  how 
the  work  was  done :  behind  these  very  sashes. 

*'Duty  called  me  to  his  bedchamber  every  morning,  and 
as  a  general  rule  I  found  him  up  and  ready  to  begin  work, 
though  he  was  sometimes  in  doubt  and  difficulty  as  to 
whether  he  should  commence  sitting,  or  standing,  or  walk- 
ing, or  lying  down.  Often  he  would  light  a  cigar,  and,  after 
pacing  the  room  for  a  few  minutes,  would  put  the  unsmoked 
remnant  on  the  mantelpiece  and  resume  his  work  with  in- 
creased cheerfulness,  as  if  he  gathered  fresh  inspiration 
from  the  gentle  odours  of  the  sublime  tobacco." 

It  is  not  very  agreeable  —  this  standing  outside  looking 
up  at  the  windows  of  somebody  you  have  loved,  watching 
for  a  shadow  on  a  curtain,  or  the  round  of  a  head  framed  in  a 
pane  of  glass. 

The  street  is  a  narrow  one  —  perhaps  the  width  of  two 
taxis,  and  when  Evins  brought  his  own  opposite  No.  36, 
I  was  much  too  near  for  any  satisfactory  composition. 
There  was,  however,  a  wonderful  old  Square  opposite,  filled 
with  trees,  grass,  perambulators,  nursemaids,  lovely  English 
children  —  the  loveliest  the  world  over,  and  the  rosiest  and 
best-behaved  —  besides  no  end  of  gravelled  walks  spat- 
tered with  shadows,  for  the  weather  had  cleared  and  the  sun 
had  come  out  and  was  shining  away  for  all  it  was  worth. 
And  there  was  an  iron  fence  —  a  tall,  ugly,  forbidding  fence, 
armed  with  bayonets  interspersed  with  grim-looking  gates, 
that  shut  to  with  a  sudden  snap  as  if  lying  in  wait  for  your 
finger,  and  could  only  be  opened  by  keys  belonging  to  the 
owners  of  the  rows  of  houses  flanking  its  four  sides.  A 
drawing  made  from  the  sidewalk  facing  the  iron  fence  would 

70 


•      t      •     Vb      • 

•    «^    •  •  •    • 
»     *    •«  t    • 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

show  only  the  front  steps,  one  window,  the  door,  and  per- 
haps the  bronze  tablet  at  the  left,  which  the  London  Society 
has  placed  there.  I  must  get  into  the  Square  and  utilize 
the  trees  and  fence  as  a  foreground,  if  my  sketch  was  to 
convey  any  idea  of  this  most  delightful  of  Thackeray's  later 
homes. 

So  I  rang  the  door  bell  —  the  same,  no  doubt,  Mr.  Thack- 
eray had  handled  hundreds  of  times,  for  there  have  been 
few  changes  since  he  left  it  fifty  years  ago  —  nothing  but  a 
touch  of  paint,  perhaps,  and  the  usual  repairs. 

In  answer  a  head  was  thrust  up  from  the  area. 

*'My  lady  'as  gone  to  Hascot,  sir  —  nobody  else  at 
'ome." 

"Could  I  get  the  key  of  the  Square?"  etc.,  and  then  there 
followed  the  customary  statement  —  one  which  I  knew 
now  by  rote  —  of  my  nationality,  profession,  purpose,  and 
blameless  character. 

No,  she  didn't  know  where  her  lady  kept  the  key.  The 
gardener  who  worked  in  the  Square,  and  who  could  be  found 
in  the  church  at  the  end  of  the  street  —  I  could  see  it  right 
before  me  —  had  a  key  —  I  might  get  it  "off  'im." 

I  knew  all  about  the  church.  Mr.  Thackeray's  daughter. 
Lady  Ritchie,  to  whom  he  dictated  much  of  "The  New- 
comes,"  had  described  it  clearly  in  one  of  her  introductions 
to  her  father's  published  works.  The  volume  was  then  in 
my  cabe  I  had  brought  it  along  to  make  sure  of  the 
identical  house  in  which  he  had  lived. 

"Our  old  house  was  the  fourth,"  she  says,  "counting  the 
end  house  from  the  corner  by  the  church  in  Onslow  Square, 
the  church  being  on  the  left  hand,  and  the  avenue  of  old 

7S 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

trees  running  in  front  of  our  drawing-room  windows.  I  used 
to  look  up  from  the  avenue  and  see  my  father's  head  bending 
over  his  work  in  the  study  window,  which  was  over  the 
drawing-room." 

Neither  the  gardener  nor  the  sexton  materiahzed  under 
Evins's  still  hunt,  and  I  rang  the  bell  of  the  door  one  house 
below. 

This  time  Jeames  Yellowplush  appeared. 

"Notat'ome"  (all  one  word);  "me  Leddy  'as  gone  to 
Hascot." 

I  was  feeling  in  my  pocket  among  my  loose  shillings  for 
half  a  crown,  in  order  to  continue  the  conversation  prop- 
erly when  the  first  housemaid's  head  was  again  thrust 
out  of  the  areaway  of  No.  36.  I  discovered  later  that  Evins 
had  been  indulging  in  a  highly  coloured  description  of  my 
morals  and  attainments. 

"The  cook  'as  found  it,  sir.  Bring  it  back,  please,  when 
you  are  through." 

"Most  estimable  person,  Evins,"  I  said,  diving  into  my 
open  pocket — when  is  it  ever  closed  abroad!  "Give  her 
this,"  and  I  inserted  the  key  and  swung  back  the  gate. 

I  had  now  a  foreground  of  tree-trunks,  clumps  of  bushes, 
a  flat  pavement  splashed  with  shadows,  and  behind  and 
through  the  iron  bars  of  the  ugly,  armed-to-the-teeth  fence 
—  especially  through  the  wide  opening  made  by  the  gate  — 
a  view  of  all  of  the  house  frontways,  and  most  of  it  down 
and  up  as  far  as  the  second  story. 

But  even  a  closed  and  locked  public  park  lacks  privacy 
when  you  are  working  under  a  white  umbrella.  The 
"prams"  began  to  gather,  slowly  and  solemnly  as  a  flock 

74 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  turkeys  gather  —  a  good  simile  this,  if  you  have  ever 
seen  turkeys  parade  —  pushed  by  the  comely  nursemaids  in 
caps  with  wide  strings  that  nigh  swept  the  ground,  little 
pink  heads  nestling  inside,  some  asleep,  some  not  —  most 
of  them  not.  Stiff-starched-frocked-children  came  next. 
Some  four  years  old,  some  five  —  among  them  a  boy  of  six  — 
one  of  those  bare-headed,  bare-legged,  rosy-cheeked,  lovable, 
huggable,  and  spankable  little  beggars  that  you  want  to  take 
in  your  arms  at  sight. 

He  squared  himself  as  he  looked  on,  his  wee  chubby  hands 
hooked  behind  his  plump  back  —  and  remarked  gravely : 

*'My  word,  but  that's  like  it!" 

Had  he  been  seventy,  standing  with  his  back  to  a  fire 
in  a  London  Club,  he  could  not  have  been  more  authorita- 
tive or  self-possessed. 

"Don't  bother  the  gentleman,"  this  from  Maria  Jane  — 
her  name  must  have  been  Maria  Jane. 

"He  isn't  bothering  me;  come  around  on  the  other  side  so 
you  can  see  how  I  do  it." 

"You  come  on  Marster  * Arry,  or  I'll " 

"Where  does  he  live?"  I  interrupted,  addressing  the 
flowing  streamers. 

"'Cross  the  way,  sir." 

"Leave  the  little  fellow  with  me  —  I'll  take  care  of 
him." 

Evins  now  joined  us;  he  had  already  backed  the  taxi  out 
of  the  line  of  my  perspective,  and  upon  seeing  the  crowd  had 
sidled  up  to  lend  a  hand. 

The  boy  took  him  in  with  a  single  glance. 

"I  wouldn't  go  round  in  one  of  those  motor  cars,"  he  said, 

75 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"if  I  were  you,  that  does  nothing  but  eat  up  the  tuppences 
whether  you  ride  or  not  —  you  can  hear  it  now.  First 
thing  you  know  it's  ten  bob." 

"Harry!  come  here  this  minute!"  rang  out  a  voice  from 
a  second  story-window  opposite. 

The  little  fellow  looked  up,  and  a  shadow  fell  across  his 
face. 

"I'll  have  to  cut  it.  Nurse  don't  count,  and  half  the 
time  I  don't  mind,  but  thafs  my  aunf  —  his  voice  ris- 
ing in  emphasis  —  "Good-bye;  thanks  awfully,"  and  he 
was  gone. 

He  was  the  grandson,  no  doubt,  of  one  of  those  little 
fellows  whom  Thackeray  loved  to  pat  on  the  head.  In- 
stantly my  memory  went  back  to  Charles  Dickens's  trib- 
ute. 

"He  had  a  particular  delight  in  boys,"  he  says,  "and  an 
excellent  way  with  them.  I  remember  his  once  asking  me, 
with  fantastic  gravity,  when  he  had  been  to  Eton  where  my 
eldest  son  then  was,  whether  I  felt  as  he  did  in  regard  to 
never  seeing  a  boy  without  wanting  instantly  to  give  him 
a  sovereign?  I  thought  of  this  when  I  looked  down  into 
his  grave  after  he  was  laid  there,  for  I  looked  down  into  it 
over  the  shoulders  of  a  boy  to  whom  he  had  been  kind." 

For  the  differences  between  the  two  great  authors  had 
been  healed  a  short  time  before  Thackeray's  death.  They 
had  not  spoken  for  some  years,  because  of  a  criticism  on 
Mr.  Thackeray  made  by  Mr.  Edmund  Yates,  which  Mr. 
Thackeray  resented,  the  Garrick  Club  sustaining  him.  The 
whole  sad  correspondence  is  before  me  as  I  write.  All  of 
his  letters  to  Yates,  to  Mr.  Dickens,  and  to  the  Committee 

76 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  the  Garrick,  are  dated  from  this  same  No.  36  Onslow 
Square,  and  all  of  them,  no  doubt,  penned  in  that  same 
room  over  the  porch  where  Hodder  fifty  years  ago  took  his 
dictation.  And,  too,  within  fifty  feet  of  the  window  from 
which  Harry's  determined  and  ever-to-be  obeyed  aunt 
called  her  small  nephew  to  her  side. 


77 


CHAPTER  VII 
JERMYN  STREET 


CHAPTER  VII 
JERMYN  STREET 

ON  THIS  June  morning  —  and  there  can  be  lovely  days 
in  England,  days  when  Nature  says:  "Yes,  I  am 
sorry;  I  have  treated  you  rather  badly  all  winter, 
but  now  for  a  sample  of  what  I  can  do  to  make  it  up  to 
you"  —  on  this  June  morning,  then,  Jermyn  Street  was 
seen  at  its  best  —  one  of  the  few  picturesque  mid-city  streets 
really  left  in  London.  Its  narrowness  helped  and  so  did 
the  burst  of  green  from  out  St.  James's  Yard  which  hung 
over  the  asphalt,  and  so  did  the  quiet  corner  of  the  old 
church  itself  —  one  of  Christopher  Wren's. 

And  yet  the  street  had  its  drawbacks.  One  of  them  — 
and  this  to  me  was  most  humiliating  —  was  the  discovery 
that  while  I  had  been  treated  with  becoming  respect  in  most 
of  my  wanderings  over  London,  that  here,  in  the  once  most 
famous  quarter  of  the  town  —  the  resort  of  the  best  bred, 
most  courteous  and  most  illustrious  men  of  England  —  I 
was  received  with  marked  distrust  because  of  my  trade. 
A  man  who  sits  in  a  taxi,  with  an  easel  on  the  front  seat,  and 
his  fingers  black  as  a  chimney  sweep's,  is  really  no  better 
than  a  patent-medicine  vendor  who  cries  out  the  virtues 
of  his  nostrums  from  the  top  of  a  soap  box,  or  the  fakir 

81 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

who  sells  tooth  wash,  patent  stovelid  lifters,  or  china- 
mending  cement  from  behind  a  push-cart. 

To-day  —  and  I  blush  to  tell  it  —  I  was  ordered  off 
Jermyn  Street.  Told  to  *'move  on"  —  to  evaporate  into 
thin  air.  Not  by  a  minion  of  the  law,  which  would  have 
been  bearable,  but  by  a  plain,  well-to-do,  matter-of-fact 
citizen  who  said  that  it  was  his  busy  day  and  that  my  taxi 
and  I  were  in  the  way  of  numbers  of  carriage  customers 
who  bought  their  hats  and  caps  in  his  shop,  and  that  he 
would  call  the  police — or  words  to  that  effect — if  I  delayed 
my  activities  an  instant. 

He  had  come  into  view  by  this  time  —  I  could  see  him 
below  my  canvas,  as  he  stood  gesticulating  on  the  side- 
walk. A  large,  florid  person,  in  white  spats,  checked  trou- 
sers, double-breasted  waistcoat,  and  spectacles.  He  was 
also  bald,  and  had  muttonchop  side-whiskers. 

And  he  was  very  positive. 

I  began  at  his  spats,  and,  in  concilatory  terms,  addressed 
him,  all  the  way  up  his  fat  body,  until  I  reached  his  irate 
face,  and  then,  as  was  my  custom  with  obdurate  and  not- 
to-be  pacified  persons,  turned  him  over  to  Evins,  and  re- 
sumed my  work :  A  line '  of  beautiful  carts,  loaded  with 
enchanting  bricks,  hauled  by  adorable  horses  dragging  great 
bunches  of  hair  tied  to  their  fetlocks,  had  stopped  for  a 
moment  in  my  right-hand  foreground,  the  whole  accent- 
uating a  necessary  high  light,  and  there  was  no  time  to 
be  lost. 

Evins  advanced  under  heavy  fire,  deployed  to  the  left, 
and  opened  within  a  few  inches  of  the  enemy. 

There  came  a  rattling  fire  of  expletives,  the  bursting 

82 


•    •     • 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  an  oath  charged  with  dynamite  —  (hats  and  caps  set  it 
off)  —  a  closer  knitting  of  the  crowd,  and  I  was  about  to 
waive  my  paint  rag  in  surrender,  when  a  fat  man  in  a  white 
apron  forced  his  way  to  my  side. 

"This  'ere  carriage  comp'ny  be  blowed!''  he  cried.  "He 
don't  hev  none  —  and  won't  to-day  cause  it's  Saturday. 
If  ye  want  to  move  yer  taxi  in  front  of  my  door.  Guvnor, 
ye  can  and  welcome.  I  keep  this  public,"  and  he  pointed 
to  a  barroom  ten  feet  farther  along  the  sidewalk,  "and  if 
ye  say  what'U  ye  hev,  I'll  bring  it  out  to  ye." 

Both  sides  ceased  firing. 

Evins  stepped  up  and  saluted. 

"This  is  a  friend  of  mine,  sir  —  very  perticular  friend. 
I'll  move  her  if  ye  don't  mmd,"  and  he  slid  in  behind  the 
steering  wheel.  "How's  that?  Can  ye  see  all  right?  Some 
o'  these  here  one  and  six  fellows  put  on  more  airs  than  a 
Lord  Mayor."  All  of  which  leads  me  to  believe  that  the 
manners  of  those  now  living  on  Jermyn  Street  have  more 
or  less  degenerated  since  the  days  when  Henry  Jermyn, 
Earl  of  St.  Albans,  laid  out  the  roadway  in  1667."* 

For  great  and  distinguished  people  —  sometimes  in  peri- 
wigs, sometimes  in  knee  breeches — have  taken  the  air 
up  and  down  these  narrow  sidewalks.  Colonel  Churchill 
(afterward  the  great  Duke  of  Marlborough) ;  Gray  the  poet; 
Sir  Isaac  Newton;  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  was  seized  with 
his  last  illness  at  No.  76  (now  Turkish  Baths);  Sydney 
Smith,  who  occupied  No.  81,  as  well  as  Secretary  Craggs, 
Addison's  friend,  who  died  here  in  1721. 

And  then  there  was  Mr.  William  Makepeace  Thackeray, 
than  whom  no  finer  gentleman  ever  put  foot  on  sole  leather, 

85 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

and  whose  home  may  still  be  seen  some  eight  or  ten  doors 
from  Regent  Street  within  a  step  of  the  Geological 
Museum. 

"Knocking  at  the  private  entrance,"  says  Mr.  Vizetelly, 
in  speaking  of  his  visit  to  Mr.  Thackeray  in  this  very  house, 
"a  young  lodging-house  slavey,  in  answer  to  my  inquiries, 
made  me  follow  her  upstairs,  I  did  so,  to  the  very  top  of 
the  house,  and  after  my  card  had  been  handed  in,  I  was 
asked  to  enter  the  front  apartment,  where  a  tall,  slim  in- 
dividual between  thirty  and  thirty-five  years  of  age,  with  a 
pleasant,  smiling  countenance,  and  a  bridgeless  nose,  and 
clad  in  a  dressing-gown  of  decided  Parisian  cut,  rose  from  a 
small  table  standing  close  to  the  near  window  to  receive  me. 
When  he  stood  up  the  low  pitch  of  the  room  caused  him  to 
look  even  taller  than  he  really  was,  and  his  actual  height 
was  well  over  six  feet.  The  apartment  was  an  exceedingly 
plainly  furnished  bedroom,  with  common  rush-seated  chairs, 
and  painted  French  bedstead,  and  with  neither  looking- 
glass  nor  prints  on  the  bare,  cold,  cheerless-looking  walls. 
On  the  table  from  which  Mr.  Thackeray  had  risen  a  white 
cloth  was  spread,  on  which  was  a  frugal  breakfast  tray  —  a 
cup  of  chocolate  and  some  dry  toast;  and  huddled  together 
at  the  other  end  were  writing  materials,  two  or  three  num- 
bers of  Frasefs  Magazine,  and  a  few  sUps  of  manuscript. 
I  presented  Mr.  Nickisson's  letter  —  (Nickisson  was  then 
the  editor  of  Frasefs  Magazine,  having  succeeded  Dr. 
Maginn)  —  and  explained  the  object  of  my  visit,  when  Mr. 
Thackeray  at  once  undertook  to  write  (for  the  forthcoming 
Pictorial  Times).  ...  So  satisfied  was  he  with  the 
three  guineas  offered  him  for  a  couple  of  columns  weekly, 

86 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

that  he  jocularly  expressed  himself  willing  to  sign  an  agree- 
ment for  life  upon  these  terms." 

And  here  upon  Jermyn  Street,  if  I  may  be  permitted  in 
such  company,  no  less  a  person  than  the  worthy  scribe 
himself  may  always  be  found,  whenever  he  is  in  London,  at 
his  friend  Jules' s,  opposite  Prince's. 

Here,  too,  lived  Colonel  Newcome  and  Bobbachy  Baw- 
hawder,  whose  adventures  are  chronicled  in  "The  Lion 
Huntress  of  Belgravia,"  as  wxU  as  *' Henry  Esmond"  and 
many  others. 

I  quote  from  "Esmond,"  not  only  because  Addison 
comes  into  the  narrative,  but  because  I  have  a  strong 
conviction,  after  looking  the  ground  over,  that  the  hat 
and  cap  shop,  occupied  by  the  gentleman  in  spats,  covers 
the  site  of  the  bookstore  referred  to  in  the  text. 

"Quitting  the  Guard-table  one  Sunday  afternoon,  when 
by  chance  Dick  had  a  sober  fit  upon  him,  he  and  his  friend 
(Henry  Esmond)  were  making  their  way  down  Germain 
Street,  and  Dick  all  of  a  sudden  left  his  companion's  arm, 
and  ran  after  a  gentleman  who  was  poring  over  a  folio 
volume  at  the  bookshop  near  to  St.  James's  church.    .    .     . 

"'Harry  Esmond,  come  hither,'  cries  out  Dick.  *Thou 
hast  heard  me  talk  over  and  over  again  of  my  dearest  Joe, 
my  guardian  angel?' 

"'Indeed,'  says  Mr.  Esmond,  with  a  bow,  *it  is  not  from 
you  only  that  I  have  learnt  to  admire  Mr.  Addison.  We 
loved  good  poetry  at  Cambridge  as  well  as  at  Oxford;  and 
I  have  some  of  yours  by  heart,  though  I  have  put  on  a  red 
coat.*,  •  .  .  "0  qui  canoro  blandius  Orpheo  vocale 
ducis  carmen;"  shall  I  go  on,  sir?'  says  Mr.  Esmond,  who, 

87 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

indeed,  had  read  and  loved  the  charming  Latin  poems  of 
Mr.  Addison,  as  every  scholar  of  that  time  knew  and  admired 
them. 

"'This  is  Captain  Esmond  who  was  at  Blenheim,'  says 
Steele. 

"'Lieutenant  Esmond,'  says  the  other,  with  a  low  bow, 
*at  Mr.  Addison's  service.' 

"'I  have  heard  of  you,'  says  Mr.  Addison,  with  a  smile; 
as,  indeed,  everybody  about  town.     .     .     . 

"'We  were  going  to  the  "George"  to  take  a  bottle  before 
the  play,'  says  Steele:  'wilt  thou  be  one,  Joe?' 

'Mr.  Addison  said  his  lodgings  were  hard  by,  where  he 
was  still  rich  enough  to  give  a  good  bottle  of  wine  to  his 
friends;  and  invited  the  two  gentlemen  to  his  apartment  in 
the  Haymarket,  whither  we  accordingly  went. 

"'I  shall  get  credit  with  my  landlady,'  says  he,  with  a 
smile,  'when  she  sees  two  such  fine  gentlemen  as  you  come 
up  my  stair.'  And  he  politely  made  his  visitors  welcome 
to  his  apartment,  which  was  indeed  but  a  shabby  one, 
though  no  grandee  of  the  land  could  receive  his  guests  with 
a  more  perfect  and  courtly  grace  than  this  gentleman.  A 
frugal  dinner,  consisting  of  a  slice  of  meat  and  a  penny  loaf, 
was  awaiting  the  owner  of  the  lodgings.  'My  wine  is  better 
than  my  meat,'  says  Mr.  Addison;  'my  Lord  Halifax  sent 
me  the  burgundy.'" 

But  all  these  fine  old  days  have  passed,  and  so  have  the 
fine  gentlemen,  young  and  old,  who  made  them  notable. 
We  have  barrooms  now  in  Jermyn  Street,  with  swinging 
glass  doors,  and  fishmongers'  stalls,  with  raw  salmon  and 
huge  crabs    stretched  out  on  zinc-covered  tables,  or  con- 

88 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

fined  in  yellow  ice;  hotels  with  lifts;  haberdashers'  wmdows 
filled  with  shirts  and  neckties,  to  say  nothing  of  hat  and 
cap  establishments  whose  owners  storm  up  and  down  their 
sidewalks  treating  poor,  but  honest,  painters  with  the  same 
contempt  and  insolence  that  they  would  a  peddler. 


89 


CHAPTER  VIII 
BERKELEY  SQUARE 


CHAPTER  VIII 
BERKELEY  SQUARE 

NO  SUCH  changes  have  fallen  upon  this — the  court 
end  of  the  town,  since  it  was  laid  out  in  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  under  Robert  Walpole, 
then  Prime  Minister.  At  No.  11,  so  the  records  show,  lived 
his  son  Horace  —  chiefly  from  1779  to  1797;  at  No.  13 
the  Marquis  of  Hertford  began  to  collect  what  is  now  the 
Wallace  Collection;  at  No.  25  lived  Charles  James  Fox;  at 
No.  28  Lord  Brougham  entertained  as  Lord  Chancellor;  at 
No.  38  Lady  Jersey's  dinners  and  balls  were  the  talk  of  the 
town;  at  No.  45  Lord  Clive  committed  suicide  in  1774,  and 
in  the  corner  house  on  Bruton  Street  Colly  Cibber  lived 
and  died. 

In  fact,  many  houses  of  the  period  are  still  identified  by 
these  names,  and  some  of  them  have  the  iron  torch- 
extinguishers  hanging  at  their  doorposts.  And  even  at  this 
late  day  the  carriage  of  his  Majesty  the  King  can  be  found 
outside  the  stoops  of  the  great  people  whose  doors  open  on 
the  Square. 

That  which  drew  me  to  it  was  the  fact  that  on  this  very 
square  was  set  up  one  of  the  most  brilliant  booths  in  all 
Vanity  Fair. 

93 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

*'A11  the  world  knows  that  Lord  Steyne's  town  palace 
stands  in  Gaunt  Square,  out  of  which  Great  Gaunt  Street 
leads,  whither  we  first  conducted  Rebecca  in  the  time  of  the 
departed  Sir  Pitt  Crawley.  Peering  over  the  railings  and 
through  the  black  trees  into  the  garden  of  the  square,  you  see 
a  few  miserable  governesses  with  wan-faced  pupils  wander- 
ing round  and  round  it,  and  round  the  dreary  grass-plot 
in  the  centre  of  which  rises  the  statue  of  Lord  Gaunt,  who 
fought  at  Minden,  in  a  three-tailed  wig,  and  otherwise 
habited  like  a  Roman  Emperor.  Gaunt  House  occupies 
nearly  a  side  of  the  square.  The  remaining  three  sides  are 
composed  of  mansions  that  have  passed  away  into  dow- 
agerism;  tall,  dark  houses,  with  window  frames  of  stone,  or 
picked  out  of  a  lighter  red.  Little  light  seems  to  be  behind 
those  lean,  comfortless  casements  now;  and  hospitality  to 
have  passed  away  from  those  doors  as  much  as  the  laced 
lacqueys  and  link-boys  of  old  times,  who  used  to  put  out 
their  torches  in  the  blank  iron  extinguishers  that  still  flank 
the  lamps  over  the  steps.  Brass  plates  have  penetrated  into 
the  Square  —  doctors,  the  Diddlesex  Bank,  Western  Branch 
—  the  English  and  European  Reunion,  etc.  —  it  has  a 
dreary  look  —  nor  is  my  Lord  Steyne's  palace  less  dreary. 
All  I  have  ever  seen  of  it  is  the  vast  wall  in  front,  with  the 
rustic  columns  at  the  great  gate,  through  which  an  old 
porter  peers  sometimes  with  a  fat  and  gloomy  red  face  — 
and  over  the  wall  the  garret  and  bedroom  windows,  and  the 
chimneys,  out  of  which  there  seldom  comes  any  smoke 
now." 

While  there  is  some  conflict  over  the  exact  location  of  this 
noble  mansion,  all  authorities  agree  that  Gaunt  Square  was 

94 


t  *    t     n 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

really  Berkeley  Square,  and  that  Great  Gaunt  Street  is  none 
other  than  the  Hill  Street  of  to-day  —  a  little  street  which 
according  to  Mr.  Thackeray  himself  runs  east  of  the  park, 
halfway  up  the  hill,  as  can  be  seen  in  my  sketch.  I  there- 
fore pin  my  faith  to  the  word  of  the  man  who  should  have 
known  best.  Certainly,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the 
blackened  old  relic  on  the  left  of  my  drawing  is  of  the  period; 
nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  of  its  spaciousness  and  aristo- 
cratic bearing  and  dignity.  On  its  rails,  too,  there  still  can 
be  found  "black  iron  extinguishers"  which  the  link-boys 
used,  and  from  one  of  whose  torches  Rawdon  Crawley  lit  his 
cigar  the  night  he  and  Wenham  left  this  same  porch  together. 

And  so  I  had  Evins  manoeuvre  his  taxi  until  the  over- 
hanging trees  shaded  my  canvas,  my  eye  on  Hill  Street  as 
well  as  the  great  house  on  my  left.  Indeed,  from  no  other 
part  of  the  Square  can  there  be  seen,  in  conjunction  with 
Hill  Street,  a  mansion  big  and  pretentious  enough  to  have 
housed  so  distinguished  an  aristocrat.  That  His  Imperial 
Majesty  King  George  had  dined  the  night  before  with  Lord 
Rosebery,  whose  house  is  near  the  top  of  the  hill  (and  Evins 
confirmed  it  from  the  morning  paper  he  was  reading),  was 
interesting  of  course,  although  I  had  not  been  invited,  but 
not  half  so  interesting  to  me  as  identifying  the  town  palace 
in  which  Mistress  Becky  Sharp  was  entertained  on  the  night 
of  her  triumph,  when  she  was  "introduced  to  the  best  of 
company." 

She  would  have  left  her  Rawdon  "at  home,  but  that 
virtue  ordained  that  her  husband  should  be  by  her  side  to 
protect  the  timid  and  fluttering  little  creature  on  her  first 
appearance  in  polite  society." 

97 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 


cc 


Lord  Steyne  stepped  forward,  taking  her  hand,  and 
greeting  her  with  great  courtesy,  and  presenting  her  to  Lady 
Steyne,  and  their  ladyships,  her  daughters.  Their  lady- 
ships made  three  stately  courtesies,  and  the  elder  lady  to 
be  sure  gave  her  hand  to  the  newcomer,  but  it  was  as  cold 
and  lifeless  as  marble. 

'* Becky  took  it,  however,  with  grateful  humility;  and 
performing  a  reverence  which  would  have  done  credit  to  the 
best  dancing  master,  put  herself  at  Lady  Steyne's  feet,  as 
it  were,  by  saying  that  his  lordship  had  been  her  father's 
earliest  friend  and  patron,  and  that  she,  Becky,  had  learned 
to  honour  and  respect  the  Steyne  family  from  the  days  of  her 
childhood.  The  fact  is,  that  Lord  Steyne  had  once  pur- 
chased a  couple  of  pictures  of  the  late  Sharp,  and  the  affec- 
tionate orphan  could  never  forget  her  gratitude  for  that 
favour. 

"The  Lady  Bareacres  then  came  under  Becky's  cogni- 
zance—  to  whom  the  colonel's  lady  made  also  a  most 
respectful  obeisance;  it  was  returned  with  severe  dignity 
by  the  exalted  person  in  question. 

"'I  had  the  pleasure  of  making  your  ladyship's  acquaint- 
ance at  Brussels,  ten  years  ago,'  Becky  said,  in  her  most 
winning  manner.  *I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Lady 
Bareacres  at  the  Duchess  of  Richmond's  ball,  the  night 
before  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  And  I  recollect  your  lady- 
ship, and  my  Lady  Blanche,  your  daughter,  sitting  in  the 
carriage  in  the  porte-cochere  at  the  Inn,  waiting  for  horses. 
I  hope  your  ladyship's  diamonds  are  safe.' "     .    .    . 

"But  it  was  when  the  ladies  were  alone  that  Becky  knew 
the  tug  of  war  would  come.    And  then  indeed  the  little 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

woman  found  herself  in  such  a  situation,  as  made  her  ac- 
knowledge the  correctness  of  Lord  Steyne's  caution  to  her  to 
beware  of  the  society  of  ladies  above  her  own  sphere.  As 
they  say  the  persons  who  hate  Irishmen  most  are  Irish- 
men: so,  assuredly,  the  greatest  tyrants  over  women  are 
women.  When  poor  little  Becky,  alone  with  the  ladies, 
went  up  to  the  fireplace  whither  the  great  ladies  had  re- 
paired, the  great  ladies  marched  away  and  took  possession 
of  a  table  of  drawings.  When  Becky  followed  them  to  the 
table  of  drawings,  they  dropped  off  one  by  one  to  the  fire 
again.  She  tried  to  speak  to  one  of  the  children  (of  whom 
she  was  commonly  fond  in  public  places),  but  Master 
George  Gaunt  was  called  away  by  his  mamma;  and  the 
stranger  was  treated  with  such  cruelty  finally,  that  even 
Lady  Steyne  herself  pitied  her  and  went  up  to  speak  to  the 
friendless  little  woman. 

"'Lord  Steyne,'  said  her  ladyship,  as  her  wan  cheeks 
glowed  with  a  blush,  *says  you  sing  and  play  very  beauti- 
fully, Mrs.  Crawley.  I  wish  you  would  do  me  the  kindness 
to  sing  to  me.' 

"*I  will  do  anything  that  may  give  pleasure  to  my  Lord 
Steyne  or  to  you,'  said  Rebecca,  sincerely  grateful,  and 
seating  herself  at  the  piano  began  to  sing. 

"She  sang  religious  songs  of  Mozart,  which  had  been 
early  favourites  of  Lady  Steyne,  and  with  such  sweetness 
and  tenderness  that  the  lady,  lingering  round  the  piano,  sat 
down  by  its  side  and  listened  until  the  tears  rolled  down  her 
eyes.  It  is  true  that  the  opposition  ladies  at  the  other  end 
of  the  room  kept  up  a  loud  and  ceaseless  buzzing  and  talking, 
but  the  Lady  Steyne  did  not  hear  those  rumours.    She  was 

09 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

a  child  again  —  and  had  wandered  back  through  a  forty 
years'  wilderness  to  her  Convent  Garden.  The  chapel 
organ  had  pealed  the  same  tones,  the  organist,  the  sister 
whom  she  loved  best  of  the  community,  had  taught  them  to 
her  in  those  early  happy  days.  She  was  a  girl  once  more, 
and  the  brief  period  of  her  happiness  bloomed  out  again 
for  an  hour  —  she  started  when  the  jarring  doors  were  flung 
open,  and  with  a  loud  laugh  from  Lord  Steyne,  the  men  of 
the  party  entered  full  of  gaiety. 

"He  saw  at  a  glance  what  had  happened  in  his  absence, 
and  was  grateful  to  his  wife  for  once.  He  went  and  spoke 
to  her  and  called  her  by  her  Christian  name,  so  as  again  to 
bring  blushes  to  her  pale  face.  'My  wife  says  you  have 
been  singing  like  an  angel,'  he  said  to  Becky.  Now  there 
are  angels  of  two  kinds,  and  both  sorts,  it  is  said,  are 
charming  in  their  way. 

"Whatever  the  previous  portion  of  the  evening  had  been, 
the  rest  of  that  night  was  a  great  triumph  for  Becky.  She 
sang  her  very  best,  and  it  was  so  good  that  every  one  of  the 
men  came  and  crowded  round  the  piano.  The  women,  her 
enemies,  were  left  quite  alone.  And  Mr.  Paul  Jefferson 
Jones  thought  he  had  made  a  conquest  of  Lady  Gaunt  by 
going  up  to  her  ladyship  and  praising  her  delightful  friend's 
first-rate  singing." 

It  was  at  the  close  of  another  great  rout  at  Gaunt  House 
—  poor  Rawdon  Crawley  having  put  his  little  Becky  into 
her  carriage  —  that  he  and  Mr.  Wenham  lighted  their 
cigars  from  the  torch  of  a  link-boy,  and  strolled  off  to- 
gether, followed  by  two  persons. 

"When  they  had  walked  down  Gaunt  Square  a  few  score 

100 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  paces,  one  of  the  men  came  up,  and  touching  Rawdon 
on  the  shoulder,  said,  'Beg  your  pardon,  Colonel,  I  wish 
to  speak  to  you  most  particular.'  This  gentleman's  ac- 
quaintance gave  a  loud  whistle  as  the  latter  spoke,  at  which 
signal  a  cab  came  clattering  up  from  those  stationed  at  the 
gate  of  Gaunt  House  —  and  the  aide-de-camp  ran  round 
and  placed  himself  in  front  of  Colonel  Crawley. 

"That  gallant  officer  at  once  knew  what  had  befallen 
him.     He  was  in  the  hands  of  the  bailiffs." 

We  all  know  the  results.  How  Jane  (Lady  Crawley) 
came  to  Rawdon's  rescue  in  the  Sponging  House,  and  how, 
after  Mr.  Moss,  the  bailiff,  had  been  satisfied,  Becky's 
husband,  his  eyes  running  over  with  gratitude,  had  sought 
his  own  home  once  more. 

But  let  Mr.  Thackeray  tell  it: 

"  Rawdon  left  her  and  walked  home  rapidly.  It  was  nine 
o'clock  at  night.  He  ran  across  the  streets,  and  the  great 
squares  of  Vanity  Fair,  and  at  length  came  up  breathless 
opposite  his  own  house.  He  started  back  and  fell  against  the 
railings,  trembling  as  he  looked  up.  The  drawing-room 
windows  were  blazing  with  light.  She  had  said  that  she 
was  in  bed  and  ill.  He  stood  there  for  some  time,  the  light 
from  the  rooms  on  his  pale  face. 

''  He  took  out  his  door-key  and  let  himself  into  the  house. 
He  could  hear  laughter  in  the  upper  rooms.  He  was  in  the 
ball  dress  in  which  he  had  been  captured  the  night  before. 
He  went  silently  up  the  stairs,  leaning  against  the  banisters 
at  the  stairhead.  I^I obody  was  stirring  in  the  house  besides 
—  all  the  servants  had  been  sent  away.  Rawdon  heard 
laughter  within,  laughter  and  singing.    Becky  was  singing 

101 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

a  snatch  of  the  song  of  the  night  before;  a  hoarse  voice 
shouted  'Bravo!    Bravo!'  —  it  was  Lord  Steyne's. 

"  Rawdon  opened  the  door  and  went  in.  A  little  table  with 
a  dinner  was  laid  out  —  and  wine  and  plate.  Steyne  was 
hanging  over  the  sofa  on  which  Becky  sat.  The  wretched 
woman  was  in  brilliant  full  toilet,  her  arms  and  all  her 
fingers  sparkling  with  bracelets  and  rings,  and  the  brilliants 
on  her  breast  which  Steyne  had  given  her.  He  had  her 
hand  in  his,  and  was  bowing  over  it  to  kiss  it,  when  Becky 
started  up  with  a  faint  scream  as  she  caught  sight  of  Raw- 
don's  white  face.  At  the  next  instant  she  tried  to  smile,  a 
horrid  smile,  as  if  to  welcome  her  husband,  and  Steyne  rose 
up,  grinding  his  teeth,  pale,  and  with  fury  in  his  looks 

"He,  too,  attempted  a  laugh  —  and  came  forward  hold- 
ing out  his  hand.  'What,  come  back!  How  d'ye  do, 
Crawley?'  he  said,  the  nerves  of  his  mouth  twitching  as  he 
tried  to  grin  at  the  intruder. 

"There  was  that  in  Rawdon's  face  which  caused  Becky 
to  fling  herself  before  him.  *I  am  innocent,  Rawdon,'  she 
said;  'before  God,  I  am  innocent.'  She  clung  hold  of  his 
coat,  of  his  hands;  her  own  were  all  covered  with  serpents, 
and  rings,  and  baubles.  T  am  innocent.  Say  I  am  inno- 
cent,' she  said  to  Lord  Steyne. 

"He  thought  a  trap  had  been  laid  for  him  and  was  as 
furious  with  the  wife  as  with  the  husband.  'You  innocent! 
Damn  you,'  he  screamed  out.  'You  innocent!  Why  every 
trinket  you  have  on  your  body  is  paid  for  by  me.  I  have 
given  you  thousands  of  pounds  which  this  fellow  has  spent, 

and  for  which  he  has  sold  you.     Innocent,  by !  You're 

as  innocent  as  your  mother,  the  ballet-girl,  and  your  hus- 

102 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

band  the  bully.  Don't  think  to  frighten  me  as  you  have 
done  others.  Make  way,  sir,  and  let  me  pass;'  and  Lord 
Steyne  seized  up  his  hat,  and,  with  flame  in  his  eyes,  and 
looking  his  enemy  fiercely  in  the  face,  marched  upon  him, 
never  for  a  moment  doubting  that  the  other  would  give 
way. 

"But  Rawdon  Crawley,  springing  out,  seized  him  by  the 
neckcloth,  until  Steyne,  almost  strangled,  writhed,  and  bent 
under  his  arm.  'You  lie,  you  dog,'  said  Rawdon.  *You 
lie,  you  coward  and  villain!'  And  he  struck  the  peer  twice 
over  the  face  with  his  open  hand,  and  flung  him  bleeding 
to  the  ground.  It  was  all  done  before  Rebecca  could  inter- 
pose. She  stood  there  trembling  before  him.  She  admired 
her  husband,  strong,  brave,  and  victorious. 

"'Come  here,'  he  said.     She  came  up  at  once. 

"*Take  off  those  things.'  She  began,  trembling,  pulling 
the  jewels  from  her  arms,  and  the  rings  from  her  shaking 
fingers,  and  held  them  all  in  a  heap,  quivering  and  looking 
up  at  him. 

"'Throw  them  down,'  he  said,  and  she  dropped  them. 
He  tore  the  diamond  ornament  out  of  her  breast,  and  flung 
it  at  Lord  Steyne.  It  cut  him  on  his  bald  forehead. 
Steyne  wore  the  scar  to  his  dying  day." 

Fine  writing  this;  unsurpassed  by  any  man  of  his  time  — 
or  any  other,  some  enthusiasts  say.  So  thought  Hayward 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review  in  a  criticism  on  "Vanity  Fair," 
printed  in  1848,  when  he  said:  "At  this  moment  the  rising 
generation  are  supplied  with  the  best  of  their  mental 
aliment  by  writers  whose  names  are  a  dead  letter  to  the 

103 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

mass,  and  among  the  most  remarkable  of  these  is  Michael 
Angelo  Titmarsh,  alias  William  Makepeace  Thackeray." 
And  so  thought  Charlotte  Bronte  who  in  1847  wrote: 
"Why  have  I  alluded  to  this  man?  I  have  alluded  to 
him,  reader,  because  I  think  I  see  in  him  an  intellect  pro- 
founder  and  more  unique  than  his  contemporaries  have  yet 
recognized;  because  I  regard  him  as  the  first  social  regenera- 
tor of  the  day  —  as  the  very  master  of  that  working  corps 
who  would  restore  to  rectitude  the  warped  system  of  things; 
because  I  think  no  commentator  on  his  writings  has  yet 
found  the  comparison  that  suits  him,  the  terms  which  rightly 
characterize  his  talent.  They  say  he  is  like  Fielding:  they 
talk  of  his  wit,  humour,  comic  powers.  He  resembles 
Fielding  as  an  eagle  does  a  vulture;  Fielding  could  stoop 
on  carrion,  but  Thackeray  never  does.  His  wit  is  bright, 
his  humour  attractive,  but  both  bear  the  same  relation  to  his 
serious  genius  that  the  mere  lambent  sheet-lightning  playing 
under  the  edge  of  the  summer  cloud  does  to  the  electric 
death-spark  hid  in  its  womb." 

And  so  thought  Mr.  Thackeray  himself,  modest  as  he 
always  was,  and  often  disheartened  over  his  work.  "Down 
on  your  knees,  you  rogue,"  he  once  said  to  James  T.  Fields, 
when  the  two  stood  in  front  of  the  author's  home.  "Down 
on  your  knees,  I  say,  for  here  'Vanity  Fair'  was  penned;  and 
I  will  go  down  with  you  for  I  have  a  high  opinion  of  that 
little  production  myself." 

And  later  on  (I  am  still  quoting  Fields),  when 
"A  friend  congratulated  him  once  on  that  touch  in 
'Vanity  Fair'  in  which  Becky  admires  her  husband  when  he 
is  giving  Steyne  the  punishment  which  ruins  her  for  life. 

104 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

*Well,'  he  said,  'when  I  wrote  that  sentence,  I  slapped  my 
fist  on  the  table,  and  said,  ''That  is  a  touch  of  genius." '  " 

Sixty-five  years  ago  all  this  and  since  then  the  reading 
world  has  confirmed  the  spoken  and  written  word  of  the 
author's  time,  and  the  praise  and  appreciation  will  con- 
tinue as  long  as  our  language  exists. 

All  of  which  accounts  for  the  fact  that  in  June,  1912,  I 
am  sitting  in  a  taxi  under  the  over-arching  trees  of  Berkeley 
Square,  working  away  like  mad  on  a  charcoal  sketch  of  what 
I  choose  to  call  the  very  house  in  which  the  immortal 
Becky  and  some  of  the  other  puppets  in  Vanity  Fair 
danced  to  the  music  of  their  Masters'  genius. 


105 


CHAPTER  IX 

ST.  GEORGE'S  CHURCH 
HANOVER  SQUARE 


CHAPTER  IX 

ST.  GEORGE'S  CHURCH 
HANOVER  SQUARE 

THERE  is  a  wedding  in  this  famous  old  church  this 
June  morning  —  a  morning  filled  with  tears  and 
sunshine  —  for  it  rains  and  clears  up  every  fifteen 
minutes.  I  watch  the  carriages  drive  up,  huge  boutoniferes 
in  the  lapels  of  the  drivers,  their  whips  tied  with  ribbons, 
and  from  my  vantage  ground  on  the  back  seat  of  my  taxi 
I  get  the  shimmer  of  silk  and  lace,  sombre  black  coats, 
and  white  shirt-fronts. 

Two  lines  of  spectators  fringing  the  carpet  conceal  the 
bride  and  her  maids  of  honour,  as  they  trip  from  their 
equipages  under  umbrellas,  for  there  is  no  awning  as  is 
usual  with  us.  Then  come  the  mujffled  strains  of  the  organ, 
and  later  on  the  party  emerge,  again  are  swallowed  up  in 
the  various  cabs  and  carriages,  and  are  whirled  away,  and 
the  two  lines  of  spectators  melt  together  —  the  women  and 
children  helping  themselves  to  the  flowers  scattered  over  the 
rain-soaked  carpet  and  porch. 

In  half  an  hour  another  party  drives  up  —  and  the  same 
scene  is  enacted,  except,  perhaps,  that  this  second  bride 
catches  the  sunshine  in  her  face,  whilst  the  lace  and  orange 

109 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

blossoms  of  the  first  were  spattered  with  rain-drops  —  and  so 
the  game  goes  on.  Five  weddings  a  day  in  St.  George's, 
Hanover  Square,  is  about  the  average  in  the  season,  and 
June  marks  its  height. 

If  I  have  read  my  "Newcomes"  aright,  little  has  been 

changed  here  since  that  other  morning  in  June  18 , 

except,  perhaps,  that  the  costumes  and  appointments  of  the 
contracting  parties  are  less  elaborate,  and  the  social  emi- 
nence of  their  guests  less  exalted. 

Indeed  few  weddings  of  the  day  have  ever  surpassed  that 
of  Barnes  Newcome  and  Lady  Clara  PuUeyn. 

"Finer  flounces,  finer  bonnets,  more  lovely  wreaths,  more 
beautiful  lace,  smarter  carriages,  bigger  white  bows,  larger 

footmen,  were  not  seen,  during  all  the  season  of  18 ,  than 

appeared  round  about  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  in  the 
beautiful  month  of  June  succeeding  that  September  when  so 
many  of  our  friends,  the  Newcomes,  were  assembled  at 
Baden.  Those  flaunting  carriages,  powdered  and  favoured 
footmen,  were  in  attendance  upon  members  of  the  Newcome 
family  and  their  connections,  who  were  celebrating  what  is 
called  a  marriage  in  high  life  in  the  temple  within.  Shall 
we  set  down  a  catalogue  of  the  dukes,  marquises,  earls,  who 
were  present,  cousins  of  the  lovely  bride?  .  .  .  Lady 
Clara  Pulleyn,  the  lovely  and  accomplished  daughter  of  the 
Earl  and  Countess  of  Dorking;  of  the  beautiful  bridesmaids, 
the  Ladies  Henrietta  Belinda  Adelaide  Pulleyn,  Miss  New- 
come,  Miss  Alice  Newcome,  Miss  Maude  Newcome,  Miss 
Anna  Maria  (Hobson)  Newcome;  and  all  the  other  per- 
sons engaged  in  the  ceremony.  It  was  performed  by  the 
Right   Honourable    and  Right  Reverend   Viscount   Gal- 

110 


THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

lowglass,  Bishop  of  Ballyshannon,  brother-in-law  to  the 
bride,  assisted  by  the  Honourable  and  Reverend  Hercules 
O'Grady,  his  lordship's  chaplain,  and  the  Reverend  John 
Bulders,  rector  of  St.  Mary's  Newcome." 

From  among  the  throngs  of  lookers  on,  had  I  had  the 
heart  I  could,  no  doubt,  myself,  have  picked  out  that: 

"Woman  of  vulgar  appearance  and  disorderly  aspect, 
accompanied  by  two  scared  children,  who  took  no  part  in 
the  disorder  occasioned  by  their  mother's  proceeding,  except 
by  their  tears  and  outcries  to  augment  the  disquiet,"  and 
who  "made  her  appearance  in  one  of  the  pews  of  the  church, 
was  noted  there  by  persons  in  the  vestry,  was  requested 
to  retire  by  a  beadle,  and  was  finally  induced  to  quit  the 
sacred  precincts  of  the  building  by  the  very  strongest 
persuasion  of  a  couple  of  policemen;  X  and  Y  laughed  at 
one  another,  and  nodded  their  heads  knowingly  as  the  poor 
wretch,  with  her  whimpering  boys,  was  led  away.  They 
understood  very  well  who  the  personage  was  who  had  come 
to  disturb  the  matrimonial  ceremony;  it  did  not  commence 
until  Mrs.  De  Lacy  (as  this  lady  chose  to  be  called)  had 
quitted  this  temple  of  Hymen.  She  slunk  through  the 
throng  of  emblazoned  carriages,  and  the  press  of  footmen 
arrayed  as  spendidly  as  Solomon  in  his  glory.  John  jeered 
at  Thomas,  William  turned  his  powdered  head,  and  signalled 
Jeames,  who  answered  with  a  corresponding  grin,  as  the 
woman,  with  sobs,  and  wild  imprecations,  and  frantic 
appeals,  made  her  way  through  the  splendid  crowd,  escorted 
by  her  aides-de-camp  in  blue." 

Such  tragedies,  no  doubt,  are  of  common  occurrence 

within  the  portals  of  St.  George,  and  if  one  were  in  search 

111 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

of  material  for  a  book,  instead  of  line  and  mass  for  a 
picture,  he  could  hardly  do  better  than  hang  around 
this  famous  old  Church,  and  study  the  faces  that  come 
and  go. 

Evins  had  his  opinions,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  express 
them. 

"Some  on  'em  will  wish  they  hadn't  never  seen  the  place 
before  they're  five  year  older,  sir.  I  took  a  young  chit  of  a 
girl  and  her  mother  to  them  steps  last  winter,  both  on  'em 
rigged  out  amazin',  and  a  man  old  enough  to  be  her  grand- 
father was  waitin'  for  her,  and  blame  me  if  the  two  didn't 
stand  up  together  and  were  married  right  'fore  my  eyes,  for  I 
left  my  car  across  the  street  and  went  in,  thinkin'  some- 
thin'  was  goin'  to  happen,  and  it  did. 

"They  come  out  together,  and  the  two,  seein'  I  was  not 
by  the  curb,  called  to  one  of  our  drivers  and  got  in,  leavin' 
the  mother  on  the  stoop,  and  up  comes  a  young  fellow  with 
his  eyes  a  blazin'  and  shakes  his  fist  in  her  face,  and  says, 
*It's  all  your  fault,'  and  while  I  was  wonderin'  what  was 
up,  he  shoved  her  into  a  four-wheeler  and  jumped  in  him- 
self, and  I  didn't  even  get  my  fare.  What  do  you  think  o' 
that,  sir?  And  so  I  say  it  would  be  better  if  some  of  these 
loon-atics  stayed  at  home." 

When  the  last  touch  had  been  put  on  my  sketch,  I 
directed  Evins  to  run  the  car  to  the  entrance  of  the  Church 
that  I  might  get  a  closer  and  more  detailed  view  of  what 
had  heretofore  been  but  a  mass  of  broken  grays  against  a 
luminous  sky. 

The  debris  of  the  last  wedding  were  still  to  be  seen;  the 
carpet  had  been  rolled  back,  to  be  unrolled  again  when  the 

112 


''^ ■      t  r-'. ,*-isj  5<-%^'^ 


ST.  GEORGE  S  CHURCH,  HANOVER  SQUARE 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

next  arrival  required  it,  but  the  crushed  roses,  bits  of  smilax, 
and  scattered  grains  of  rice,  were  still  visible. 

I  passed  inside  and  walked  to  the  rail,  where  so  many- 
couples  had  been  sentenced  for  life  to  either  happiness  or 
misery.  It  was  not  difficult  to  pick  out  the  exact  spot 
where  Barnes  Newcome  and  Lady  Clara  had  stood,  nor  was 
it  difficult  to  repeople  the  now  deserted  Church  with  the 
gray  throng. 

We  know  what  happened  in  her  own  and  Jack  Belsize's 
case.  How  the  heart-broken  lover  disappeared  imme- 
diately after  the  ceremony  and  wandered  over  the  continent. 
How: 

''It  was  said  he  had  broken  the  bank  at  Homburg  last 
autumn;  had  been  heard  of  during  the  winter  at  Milan, 
Venice,  and  Vienna;  and  when,  a  few  months  after  the 
marriage  of  Barnes  Newcome  and  Lady  Clara,  Jack's 
elder  brother  died,  and  he  himself  became  the  next  in  suc- 
cession to  the  title  and  estates  of  Highgate,  many  folks  said 
it  was  a  pity  little  Barney's  marriage  had  taken  place  so 
soon." 

As  for  Barnes  Newcome  and  his  share  in  the  comedy,  it  is 
best  told  in  the  talk  that  that  distinguished  banker  and 
member  of  Parliament,  now  Sir  Barnes  Newcome,  had  with 
Lady  Kew: 

"I  want  you  to  send  Clara  and  the  children  to  Newcome. 
They  ought  to  go,  sir;  that  is  why  I  sent  for  you;  to  tell  you 
that.  Have  you  been  quarrelling  as  much  as  usual?  'I 
didn't  come  to  hear  this,  ma'am,'  says  Barnes,  livid  with 
rage. 

"'You  struck  her,  you  know  you  did.  Sir  Barnes  New- 

115 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

come.  She  rushed  over  to  me  last  year  on  the  night  you 
did  it,  you  know  she  did.' 

"'Great  God,  ma'am.  You  know  the  provocation/ 
screams  Barnes. 

"'Provocation  or  not,  I  don't  say.  But  from  that 
moment  she  has  beat  you.  You  fool,  to  write  her  a  letter 
and  ask  her  pardon!  If  I  had  been  a  man,  I  would  rather 
have  strangled  my  wife  than  have  humiliated  myself  so 
before  her.     She  will  never  forgive  that  blow.' 

"'I  was  mad  when  I  did  it;  and  she  drove  me  mad,'  says 
Barnes.  'She  has  the  temper  of  a  fiend  and  the  ingenuity 
of  the  devil.  In  two  years  an  entire  change  has  come  over 
her.  If  I  had  used  a  knife  to  her  I  should  not  have  been 
surprised.  But  it  is  not  with  you  to  reproach  me  about 
Clara.     Your  ladyship  found  her  for  me.'" 

As  to  Lady  Clara,  was  it  any  wonder  that  the  customary 
thing  happened,  as  we  gather  from  the  pages  of  the  text? 
How  on  one  occasion  Jack  Belsize,  now  Lord  Highgate,  who 
sat  next  to  her  at  dinner,  was  "whispering  all  the  while 
into  her  ringlets."  How,  later  on,  in  the  cloak  room  at 
Lady  Ann's  mansion  during  a  great  ball  there  "sits  Lady 
Clara  Newcome,  with  a  gentleman  bending  over  her 
just  in  such  an  attitude  as  the  bride  is,  in  Hogarth's 
*  Marriage  a  la  Mode,'  as  the  counsellor  talks  to  her.  Lady 
Clara  starts  up,  as  a  crowd  of  blushes  come  into  her  wan 
face,  and  tries  to  smile,  and  rises  to  greet  my  wife,  and  says 
something  about  it  being  so  dreadfully  hot  in  the  upper 
rooms,  and  so  very  tedious  waiting  for  the  carriages.  The 
gentleman  advances  toward  me  with  a  military  stride,  and 
says,  'How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Pendennis?    How's  our  young 

116 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

friend,  the  painter?'  I  answer  Lord  Highgate  civilly 
enough,  whereas  my  wife  will  scarce  speak  a  word  in  reply 
to  Lady  Clara  Newcome." 

And  then  the  summing  up:  after  Lady  Clara's  and  Lord 
Highgate's  elopement. 

"Does  the  Right  Reverend  Prelate  who  did  the  bene- 
dictory business  for  Barnes  and  Clara,  his  wife,  repent  in 
secret?  Do  the  parents  who  pressed  the  marriage,  and  the 
fine  folks  who  signed  the  book,  and  ate  the  breakfast,  and 
applauded  the  bridegroom's  speech,  feel  a  little  ashamed? 
0  Hymen  Hymenaee!  The  bishops,  beadles,  clergy,  pew 
openers,  and  other  officers  of  the  temple  dedicated  to  Heaven 
under  the  invocation  of  St.  George,  will  officiate  in  the 
same  place  at  scores  and  scores  more  of  such  marriages; 
and  St.  George  of  England  may  behold  virgin  after  virgin 
offered  up  to  the  devouring  monster  Mammon  (with  many 
most  respectable  female  dragons  looking  on)  —  may  see 
virgin  after  virgin  given  away,  just  as  in  the  Soldan  of 
Babylon's  time,  but  with  never  a  champion  to  come  to  the 
rescue!" 

As  I  closed  the  book  —  I  had  brought  it  with  me  into  the 
church  that  I  might  study  it  the  more  quietly  —  I  could 
not  banish  from  my  mind  the  glimpse  of  the  life  of  to-day 
which  Evins  had  given  me,  wondering  whether  after  all 
more  than  one  plot  and  four  characters  were  ever  needed 
in  staging  the  domestic  tragedies  of  our  own,  or  of  any  other 
time :  the  girl,  the  woman  who  sold  her,  the  man  who  bought 
her,  and  that  other  man  whom  she  loves,  and  who,  having 
stolen  her  heart,  straightway  steals  her  body. 

117 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  REFORM  CLUB 


M 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  REFORM  CLUB 

R.  THEODORE  TAYLOR'S  delightful  volume, 
''Thackeray  the  Humourist  and  the  Man  of  Let- 
ters," published  in  1864  —  a  year  after  the  great 
novelist's  death  —  gives  Thackeray's  clubs  as  the  Reform, 
the  Athenaeum,  and  the  Garrick,  adding  that  the  afternoons 
of  the  last  week  of  his  life  were  almost  entirely  passed  at  the 
Reform,  and  that  during  all  of  that  time  he  had  never  been 
more  genial  or  in  such  apparently  happy  moods.  Many  of 
his  brother  members  have,  since  his  death,  recalled  to  each 
other  one  of  the  tenderest  passages  among  his  early  sketches 
—  "Brown  the  younger  at  a  Club"  —  in  which  the  old 
uncle,  while  showing  his  nephew  the  various  rooms  of  the 
club,  is  represented  as  recalling  memories  of  men  —  whose 
names  now  appeared  at  the  end  of  the  club  list  under  the 
dismal  category  of  "Members  Deceased,"  in  which  (added 
Thackeray),  "You  and  I  shall  rank  some  day." 

Mr.  Taylor  quotes  also  from  Mr.  Shirley  Brooks,  in  his 
account  of  the  last  occasion  on  which  the  latter  saw  Mr. 
Thackeray  at  the  Garrick  Club,  only  eight  days  before  his 
death.  "On  that  evening,  he  enjoyed  himself  much,  in 
his  own  quiet  way,  and  contributed  genially  to  the  enjoy- 

121 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

ment  of  those  who  were  something  less  quiet;  and,  a  ques- 
tion arising  about  a  subscription  in  aid  of  a  disabled  artist, 
he  instantly  offered  to  increase,  if  necessary,  a  sum  he  had 
previously  promised.  The  writer's  very  last  recollection  of 
the  'cynic,'  therefore,  is  in  connexion  with  an  unasked  act 
of  Christian  kindness.  On  the  following  Monday  he 
attended  the  funeral  of  a  lady  who  was  interred  in  Kensal 
Green  Cemetery.  On  the  Tuesday  evening  he  came  to  his 
favourite  club  —  the  Garrick  —  and  asked  a  seat  at  the 
table  of  two  friends,  who,  of  course,  welcomed  him  as  all 
welcomed  Thackeray.  It  will  not  be  deemed  too  minute  a 
record  by  any  of  the  hundreds  who  personally  loved  him  to 
note  where  he  sat  for  the  last  time  in  that  club.  There  is 
in  the  dining-room  on  the  first  floor  a  nook  near  the  reading 
room.  The  principal  picture  hanging  in  that  nook,  and 
fronting  you  as  you  approach  it,  is  the  celebrated  one  from 
*The  Clandestine  Marriage,'  with  Lord  Ogleby,  Canton, 
and  Brush.  Opposite  to  that  Thackeray  took  his  seat  and 
dined  with  his  friends.  He  was  afterward  in  the  smoking 
room,  a  place  in  which  he  delighted.  The  Garrick  Club  will 
remove  in  a  few  months,  and  all  these  details  will  be  noth- 
ing to  its  new  members,  but  much  to  many  of  its  old  ones. 
His  place  there  will  know  him  and  them  no  more.  On  the 
Wednesday  he  was  out  several  times,  and  was  seen  in 
Palace  Gardens  'reading  a  book.'  Before  the  dawn  on 
Thursday,  he  was  where  there  is  no  night." 

Dickens  had  a  still  later  glimpse  of  him  at  the  Athenaeum. 
"I  saw  him  .  .  ."  he  says,  ''shortly  before  Christmas 
at  the  Athenaeum,  when  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  in  bed 
three  days,  that  after  those  attacks  he  was  troubled  with 

122 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

cold  shiverings  which  quite  took  the  power  of  work  out  of 
him,  and  that  he  had  it  in  his  mind  to  try  a  new  remedy, 
which  he  laughingly  described.  He  was  very  cheerful  and 
looked  very  bright." 

These  three  clubs  —  the  Reform,  the  Garrick,  and  the 
Athenaeum  —  were  the  ones  he  loved  best.  There  were 
other  resorts  that  welcomed  him  —  the  Cock,  in  Fleet 
Street,  and  the  London  Tavern,  within  whose  hospitable 
oak-panelled  walls  he  and  his  friends  and  admirers  enjoyed 
a  memorable  dinner. 

"Covers  were  laid  for  sixty"  (I  still  quote  from 
Mr.  Taylor's  book),  "and  sixty  and  no  more  sat  down 
precisely  at  the  minute  named  to  do  honour  to  the 
great  novelist.  Sixty  very  hearty  shakes  of  the  hand  did 
Thackeray  receive  from  sixty  friends  on  that  occasion;  and 
hearty  cheers  from  sixty  vociferous  and  friendly  tongues 
followed  the  chairman's,  Mr.  Charles  Dickens,  proposal  of 
his  health,  and  of  wishes  for  his  speedy  and  successful 
return  among  us.  Dickens  —  the  best  after-dinner  speaker 
now  alive  —  was  never  happier.  He  spoke  as  if  he  was 
fully  conscious  that  it  was  a  great  occasion,  and  that 
the  absence  of  even  one  reporter  was  a  matter  of  con- 
gratulation, affording  ampler  room  to  unbend.  The  table 
was  in  the  shape  of  a  horseshoe  having  two  vice-chairmen; 
and  this  circumstance  was  wrought  up  and  played  with 
by  Dickens  in  the  true  Sam  Weller  and  Charles  Dickens 
manner.  Thackeray,  who  is  far  from  what  is  called 
a  good  speaker,  outdid  himself.  There  was  his  usual  hesi- 
tation; but  this  hesitation  becomes  his  manner  of  speak- 
ing and  his  matter,  and  is  never  unpleasant  to  his  hearers, 

123 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

though  it  is,  we  are  assured,  most  irksome  to  himself.  This 
speech  was  full  of  pathos,  and  humour,  and  oddity,  with 
bits  of  prepared  parts  imperfectly  recollected,  but  most 
happily  made  good  by  the  felicities  of  the  passing  moment. 
It  was  a  speech  to  remember  for  its  earnestness  of  purpose 
and  its  undoubted  originality.  Then  the  chairman  quitted, 
and  many,  near  and  at  a  distance,  quitted  with  him.  Thack- 
eray was  on  the  move  with  the  chairman,  when,  inspired 
by  the  moment,  Jerrold  took  the  chair,  and  Thackeray 
remained.  Who  is  to  chronicle  what  now  passed?  —  what 
passages  of  wit  —  what  neat  and  pleasant  sarcastic  speeches 
in  proposing  healths  —  what  varied  and  pleasant,  ay,  and 
at  times,  sarcastic  acknowledgments?  Up  to  the  time  when 
Dickens  left,  a  good  reporter  might  have  given  all,  and  with 
ease,  to  future  ages;  but  there  could  be  no  reporting  what 
followed.  There  were  words  too  nimble  and  too  full  of 
flame  for  a  dozen  Gurneys,  all  ears,  to  catch  and  preserve. 
Few  will  forget  that  night.  There  was  an  *air  of  wit'  about 
the  room  for  three  days  after." 

It  was  the  Reform  Club  which  he  had  gladdened  by  his 
presence  the  week  of  his  death  that  now  loomed  up  before 
me  out  of  the  fog  and  smoke  —  a  great,  square,  sullen  mass 
of  granite  divided  from  the  Carleton  Club  by  a  narrow  alley 
as  is  seen  in  my  sketch. 

It  looks  forbidding  enough  outside,  frowning  at  you  from 
under  its  heavy  browed  windows  —  an  aloof,  stately,  cold 
and  unwelcome  sort  of  place.  Inside,  it  may  be  more  cheer- 
ful and  more  friendly;  a  London  coal  fire,  an  English  easy 
chair  —  and  there  are  none  better,  or  more  comfortable  — 
and  a  low  reading  lamp,  may  take  some  of  the  chill  off. 

124 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Then  again,  one  may  be  spoken  to  now  and  then  by  some 
other  lost  soul,  hungry  for  companionship,  but  I  doubt  it. 
I  am  not  going  to  scold.  It  is  racial,  perhaps,  and  the  island 
is  so  small  that  it  is  dangerous  to  rub  elbows  against  every- 
body, but  I  cannot,  all  the  same,  quite  smother  my  feelings. 
My  own  clubs  are  scattered  from  Boston  to  Washington, 
with  a  few  out  West,  and  often  as  I  prowl  about  London 
alone,  and  look  up  into  the  faces  of  the  windows  of  these 
mausoleums,  wondering  what  sort  of  men  are  behind  them, 
I  cannot  help  recalling  the  cozy  corners  of  mine  at  home,  into 
which  are  welcomed  hundreds  of  strangers  from  all  over  the 
globe,  and  with  a  heartiness  and  sincerity  that  sets  them  to 
thinking.  Some  of  them  pinch  themselves  in  amazement, 
wondering  whether  they  are  really  awake.  Yes,  it  must  be 
racial;  or,  perhaps,  the  chill  of  countless  fogs  has  gotten 
into  their  bones. 

And  with  this  came  the  thought:  What  a  godsend 
Mr.  Thackeray  must  have  been  to  many  within  its  walls, 
and  how  the  warmth  of  his  geniality  must  have  helped  to 
thaw  out  that  peculiar  chilly  reserve  which  in  many  really 
fine,  hearty,  and  ready-to-be-kind  Englishmen,  is  due  neither 
to  rudeness  nor  to  class  distinction,  but  simply,  strange  as  it 
may  appear,  to  innate  shyness. 

The  blast  of  a  siren  clearing  the  way  for  a  taxi  which 
pulled  up  on  the  right  at  the  Carlton,  unloading  an  important 
personage  whom  Evins  told  me  was  a  member  of  Parliament, 
awoke  me  from  my  reverie.  The  blast  was  intended  for 
me,  my  being  anchored  in  the  middle  of  the  unloading  space 
reserved  for  the  elect  being  nothing  short  of  an  outrage. 
The  upholstered  porter  —  mostly  in  red  —  was  evidently  of 

127 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

this  opinion,  and  expressed  it  in  a  concentrated  glower. 
Evins  had  opinions  of  his  own;  I  saw  that  from  the  way 
his  mouth  straightened  —  quite  as  it  did  that  morning  off 
Staple  Inn. 

"Are  we  in  the  way,  Evins? "I  asked. 

"No,  sir,  we  ain't;  and  if  we  was  it  wouldn't  make  no 
difference.  Them  stuffs  in  gold  lace  think  they  own  the 
earth." 


128 


CHAPTER  XI 
COVENT  GARDEN 


CHAPTER  XI 
COVENT   GARDEN 

WHEN  describing  some  highly  convivial  scene, 
Thackeray  generally  places  his  characters  in  one 
of  the  quaint  chophouses  and  taverns  of  old  Lon- 
don, rather  than  around  the  mahogany  tables  of  the  more 
famous  clubs. 

The  Cave  of  Harmony,  fronting  Covent  Garden  Market 
—  he  knew  in  his  youth.  There  to  quote  from  "The  New- 
comes,"  "song  and  cup  "  passed  merrily,  and  I  daresay  the 
songs  and  bumpers  were  encored. 

We  have  his  own  words  as  proof  that  the  tap  room  was 
near  Covent  Garden,  for  in  "A  Night's  Pleasure"  there  oc- 
curs these  words: 

"*What!  is  the  old  Cave  of  Harmony  still  extant?'  I 
asked.     '  I  have  not  been  there  these  twenty  years.' 

"And  memory  carried  me  back  to  the  days  when  Light- 
sides,  of  Corpus,  myself,  and  little  Oaks,  the  Johnian,  came 
up  to  town  in  a  chaise-and-four,  at  the  long  vacation  at  the 
end  of  our  freshman's  year,  ordered  turtle  and  venison  for 
dinner  at  the  Bedford,  blubbered  over  'Black-eyed  Susan' 
at  the  play,  and  then  finished  the  evening  at  that  very 
Harmonic  Cave,  where  the  famous  EngUsh  Improvisatore 

131 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

sang  with  such  prodigious  talent  that  we  asked  him  to  stay 
with  us  in  the  country. 

"'And  so  the  Cave  of  Harmony  is  open,'  I  said,  looking 
at  little  Grigg  with  a  sad  and  tender  interest,  and  feeling 
that  I  was  about  a  hundred  years  old. 

"  */  believe  you  my  baw-aw-oy!'  said  he,  adopting  the  tone 
of  an  exceedingly  refined  and  popular  actor,  whose  choral 
and  comic  powers  render  him  a  general  favourite. 

"'Does  Bivins  keep  it?'  I  asked,  in  a  voice  of  profound 
melancholy. 

"'Hoh!  What  a  flat  you  are!  You  might  as  well  ask  if 
Mrs.  Siddons  acted  Lady  Macbeth  to-night,  and  if  Queen 
Anne's  dead  or  not.  I  tell  you  what.  Spec,  my  boy  — 
you're  getting  a  regular  old  flat  —  fogy,  sir,  a  positive  old 
fogy.  How  the  deuce  do  you  pretend  to  be  a  man  about 
town,  and  not  know  that  Bivins  has  left  the  Cavern? 
Law  bless  you!  Come  in  and  see:  I  know  the  landlord 
—  I'll  introduce  you  to  him.' 

"This  was  an  offer  which  no  man  could  resist;  and  so 
Grigg  and  I  went  through  the  Piazza,  and  down  the  steps  of 
that  well-remembered  place  of  conviviality 

"The  room  was  full  of  young,  rakish-looking  lads,  with  a 
dubious  sprinkling  of  us  middle-aged  youth,  and  stalwart, 
red-faced  fellows  from  the  country,  with  whiskey  noggins 
before  them,  and  bent  upon  seeing  life." 


"He  said  he  would  have  a  sixth  glass  if  we  would  stop: 
but  we  didn't;  and  he  took  his  sixth  glass  without  us.  My 
melancholy  young  friend  had  begun  another  comic  song, 

132 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

and  I  could  bear  it  no  more.  The  market  carts  were  rat- 
tling into  Covent  Garden;  and  the  illuminated  clock 
marked  all  sorts  of  small  hours  as  we  concluded  this 
night's  pleasure." 

Costigan  was  generally  to  be  seen  at  the  Cave  of  Har- 
mony and  in  the  opening  chapters  of  "The  Newcomes" 
we  are  told  how  the  outraged  Colonel,  after  listening  to  one 
of  his  ribald  songs,  denounced  the  old  reprobate  in  un- 
measured terms,  and  catching  Clive  by  the  arm,  marched 
the  boy  out  of  the  polluted  atmosphere  into  "the  fresh 
night  air  of  Covent  Garden  Market." 

"Holding  on  by  various  tables,  the  Captain  had  sidled 
up,  without  accident  to  himself  or  any  of  the  jugs  and  glasses 
round  about  him,  to  the  table  where  we  sat,  and  had  taken 
his  place  near  the  writer,  his  old  acquaintance. 

"...  'He's  a  great  character,'  whispered  that  un- 
lucky King  of  Corpus  to  his  neighbour,  the  Colonel  .  .  . 
*  Captain  Costigan,  will  you  take  something  to  drink?' 

"*Bedad,  I  will,'  says  the  Captain,  'and  I'll  sing  ye  a 
song  tu.' 

"The  unlucky  wretch,  who  scarcely  knew  what  he  was 
doing,  or  saying,  selected  one  of  the  most  outrageous  per- 
formances of  his  repertoire,  fired  off  a  tipsy  howl  by  way 
of  overture,  and  away  he  went.  At  the  end  of  the  second 
verse  the  Colonel  started  up,  clapping  on  his  hat,  seizing 
his  stick,  and  looking  as  ferocious  as  though  he  had  been 
going  to  do  battle  with  a  Pindaree.  'Silence!'  he  roared 
out. 

"'Hear,  hear!'  cried  certain  wags  at  a  farther  table. 
'Go  on,  Costigan!'  said  others. 

188 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"*Go  on!'  cries  the  Colonel,  in  his  high  voice,  trembling 
with  anger.  *Does  any  gentleman  say,  "Go  on"?  Does 
any  man  who  has  a  wife  and  sisters,  or  children  at  home,  say 
"Go  on"  to  such  disgusting  ribaldry  as  this?  Do  you  dare, 
sir,  to  call  yourself  a  gentleman,  and  to  say  that  you  hold 
the  king's  commission,  and  to  sit  down  amongst  Christians 
and  men  of  honour,  and  defile  the  ears  of  young  boys  with 
this  wicked  balderdash?' 

"'Why  do  you  bring  young  boys  here,  old  boy?'  cries 
a  voice  of  the  malcontents. 

"'Why?  Because  I  thought  I  was  coming  to  a  society  of 
gentlemen,'  cried  out  the  indignant  Colonel.  'Because  I 
never  could  have  believed  that  Englishmen  could  meet 
together  and  allow  a  man,  and  an  old  man,  so  to  disgrace 
himself.  For  shame,  you  old  wretch!  Go  home  to  your 
bed,  you  hoary  old  sinner!  And  for  my  part,  I'm  not  sorry 
that  my  son  should  see,  for  once  in  his  life,  to  what  shame 
and  degradation  and  dishonour,  drunkenness  and  whiskey 
may  bring  a  man.  Never  mind  the  change,  sir!  Curse 
the  change!'  says  the  Colonel,  facing  the  amazed  waiter. 
'Keep  it  till  you  see  me  in  this  place  again;  which  will  be 
never  —  by  George,  never!'  And  shouldering  his  stick, 
and  scowling  round  at  the  company  of  scared  bacchana- 
lians the  indignant  gentleman  stalked  away,  his  boy  after 
him." 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  this  Cave  was  no  other 
than  the  old  chophouse  known  as  "Evans's"  —  a  resort 
to  which  Thackeray  once  took  Mr.  Lowell  to  listen  to  the 
last  chapters  of  "The  Newcomes."  Since  then  a  new  stone 
front  has  been  added  and  the  name  changed  to  that  of 

184 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

the  Sporting  Club,  —  the  white  building  seen  in  my  sketch 
through  the  columns  of  St.  Paul's. 

Of  the  pedigree  of  the  adjoining  structures,  no  question 
can  arise.  The  "Bedford  Hotel,"  which  runs  out  of  my 
sketch  on  its  extreme  right  hand,  is  to-day  the  same  old  pile 
of  masonry  —  black,  queer,  and  fog-stained  —  that  wel- 
comed Thackeray  in  his  younger  days,  as  well  as  many  of 
his  characters.  Here  he  invariably  "put  up,"  whenever 
in  his  early  wanderings  he  strayed  into  London.  His  de- 
scription of  it  might  almost  be  written  under  my  sketch,  so 
little  changes  have  taken  place  in  the  surroundings: 

"The  two  great  national  theatres  on  one  side,"  he  says, 
"a  churchyard  full  of  mouldy  but  undying  celebrities  on  the 
other;  a  fringe  of  houses  studded  in  every  part  with  anecdote 
or  history;  an  arcade  often  more  gloomy  and  deserted  than 
a  cathedral  aisle;  a  rich  cluster  of  brown  old  taverns  —  one 
of  them  filled  with  the  counterfeit  presentments  of  many 
actors  long  since  silent,  who  scowl  and  smile  once  more 
from  the  canvas  upon  the  grandsons  of  their  dead  admirers; 
a  something  in  the  air  which  breathes  of  old  books,  old 
painters,  and  old  authors;  a  place  beyond  all  other  places 
one  would  choose  in  which  to  hear  the  chimes  at  midnight, 
a  crystal  palace  —  the  representative  of  the  present  — 
which  presses  in  timidly  from  a  corner  upon  many  things 
of  the  past;  a  withered  bank  that  has  been  sucked  dry  by  a 
felonious  clerk,  a  squat  building  with  a  hundred  columns, 
and  chapel-looking  fronts,  which  always  stands  knee-deep 
in  baskets,  flowers,  and  scattered  vegetables;  a  common 
centre  into  which  Nature  showers  her  choicest  gifts,  and 
where  the  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth  often  nearly  choke  the 

135 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

narrow  thoroughfares;  a  population  that  never  seems  to 
sleep,  and  that  does  all  in  its  power  to  prevent  other  sleeping; 
a  place  where  the  very  latest  suppers  and  the  earliest  break- 
fasts jostle  each  other  over  the  footways." 

This  same  bustle  and  noise  surrounded  my  easel  when  I 
opened  it  under  the  great  portico  of  St.  Paul's,  and  began 
the  composition  with  the  church  on  my  left,  its  columns 
framing  the  buildings  which  Thackeray's  pen  made  so 
real,  and  so  interesting  to  his  readers  of  to-day. 

The  crowd  about  me  was  greater,  perhaps,  than  usual, 
because  of  the  novelty  of  the  sight  —  outdoor  painters  being 
scarce  at  Covent  Garden  Market — and  because,  no  doubt,  the 
roof  of  the  portico  served  as  a  shelter  from  the  rain,  which 
seemed  determined  to  make  a  day  of  it.  But  it  was  a  good- 
natured,  orderly  crowd,  the  market-men  marking  a  protect- 
ing circle  about  me  with  the  toes  of  their  heavy  boots,  the 
women  and  children  looking  over  their  shoulders. 

None  of  them  had  ever  heard  of  "Evans's."  They  all 
knew  that  the  white  house  between  the  columns,  and  which 
my  bit  of  charcoal  was  making  clear  to  them,  had  been 
a  tavern  of  one  kind  or  another  —  longer  ago  than  even 
the  oldest  could  remember  —  up  to  the  time  the  Sporting 
Club  moved  in,  but  that  was  as  far  as  their  information 
went. 

They  "knowed  all  about"  Tavistock's,  next  the  Bedford. 
I  could  get  "a  bite  and  a  pint  o'  bitters  easy,  if  I  was  a 
bit  hongry  at  Tavistock's." 

And  so,  the  sketch  finished  and  the  rain  over,  I  betook 
myself  to  the  old,  mouldy,  smoky  tavern  under  the  arcade, 
and  sat  me  down  to  the  very  table  no  doubt,  at  which 

136 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Thackeray,  Sir  Peter  Lely,  Turner,  Kneller,  and  many  other 
worthies  of  the  time  had  had  '*a  morsel  to  eat  and  a  sup  o' 
drink  " —  and  out  of  the  same  mug,  no  doubt;  carpeted  with 
the  same  sawdust  on  the  floor,  the  webs  of  forgotten  spiders 
cUnging  to  the  rafters  overhead. 


139 


CHAPTER  XII 

FLEET  STREET  AND 
•'THE  COCK"  TAVERN 


CHAPTER  XII 

FLEET  STREET  AND 
"THE   COCK"  TAVERN 

FLEET  STREET  and  its  tortuous  by-alleys  were  for 
hundreds  of  years  famous  for  its  taverns.  Here  not 
only  the  wits  and  gourmands  of  the  day  made  merry, 
but  within  their  hospitable  walls  could  be  found  at  all  hours 
of  the  day,  and  most  of  those  of  the  night,  men  of  note  and 
quality. 

"The  coffee  house,"  to  quote  Macaulay,  "was  the  Lon- 
doner's home,  and  those  who  wished  to  find  a  gentleman, 
commonly  asked  .  .  .  whether  he  frequented  the 
Grecian  or  the  Rainbow." 

Of  these  but  few  remain.  Of  many  only  their  sites  are 
known.  All  of  them,  however,  are  remembered  because  they 
were  the  haunts  of  men  whose  names  are  household  words 
to-day.  In  the  Devil's  Tavern,  we  hear  of  Swift  dining  with 
Dr.  Garth  and  Addison,  Garth  treating;  and  of  Dr. 
Johnson  presiding  at  a  supper  party  which  was  given  to 
Mrs.  Charlotte  Lenox,  in  honour  of  the  publication  of  her 
first  novel,  "The  Life  of  Harriet  Stuart." 

"The  supper  was  elegant,"  so  runs  the  chronicle,  "and 
Johnson  had  directed  that  a  magnificent  hot  apple-pie 

143 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

should  make  a  part  of  it;  and  this  he  would  have  stuck  with 
bay  leaves,  because,  forsooth,  Mrs.  Lenox  was  an  author- 
ess. .  .  .  About  five  (a.  m.)  Johnson's  face  shone  with 
meridian  splendour,  though  his  drink  had  been  only  lemon- 
ade. The  dawn, of  day  began  to  put  us  in  mind  of  our  reck- 
oning; but  the  waiters  were  all  so  overcome,  with  sleep  that 
it  was  two  hours  before  a  bill  could  be  had,  and  it  was  not 
until  near  eight  that  the  creaking  of  the  street  door  gave  the 
signal  for  our  departure." 

The  famous  Kit-Kat  Club  stood  in  Shire  Lane.  Here,  in 
Queen  Anna's  reign,  thirty-nine  young  noblemen  and  gentle- 
men attached  to  the  House  of  Hanover  were  wont  to  "sleep 
away  the  days  and  drink  away  the  nights." 

Hard  by  was  the  Bible  Tavern,  which  was  appropriately 
chosen  by  Jack  Sheppard  for  many  of  his  orgies,  for  it  was 
possessed  of  a  trap-door  leading  to  a  subterranean  passage. 

The  Rainbow  —  the  second  to  be  opened  in  London  — 
dated  as  far  back  as  1637.  Here  its  proprietor,  a  certain 
James  Farr,  a  barber,  was,  in  1657,  prevented  by  the 
Parish  from  "makinge  and  sellinge  of  a  drinke  called  coffee, 
whereby  in  making  the  same  he  annoyeth  his  neighbours  by 
evil  smells." 

"Dicks"  —  now  an  Italian  restaurant  —  may  still  be 
found  at  No.  8  entered  by  a  passage. 

"The  Cock"  alone  survives — one  of  the  few  ancient  tav- 
erns remaining  unaltered  internally  from  the  time  of  James  L 
The  outside  fell  into  the  clutches  of  the  Demon  of  Unrest 
in  1887,  and  was  sent  to  the  dumping  ground  to  make 
room  for  what  Hare  calls  "a  ludicrous  Temple  Bar  Me- 
morial."   But   the   inside   fittings   were   rescued   bodily, 

144 


m 


i 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

carried  across  Fleet  Street,  and  set  up  in  its  new  home,  No. 
22,  a  short  distance  from  its  old  site  at  201  —  not  a  renova- 
tion, nor  a  patching  up,  nor  making  one  half  of  it  new  to 
match  the  old,  but  the  putting  together  in  a  new  room,  the 
size  of  the  old  one,  everything  that  the  old  one  had  contained. 
The  old  Jacobean  fireplace,  with  its  grate,  mantel,  fender  and 
fire  tongs  and  shovel,  was  set  up  intact;  the  same  old 
settees  were  placed  in  the  same  relative  positions  as  at  No. 
201;  the  same  old  prints  and  sketches,  and  in  the  same 
frames,  were  hung  in  their  old  panels  on  the  walls,  and  the 
same  cheap  gas  jets  fastened  to  the  well-smoked  ceiling  — 
to-day  a  quarter  of  a  century  old.  Even  now  much  of  the 
old  pewter,  crockery,  and  glass  can  be  found  on  the  time- 
worn  shelving,  while  the  floor,  as  in  the  old  days,  is  bare 
of  a  carpet,  and  the  time-honoured  tables  still  smile  back 
at  you  from  out  of  the  polish  made  and  kept  bright  by  the 
elbows  of  a  hundred  celebrities. 

It  was  to  one  of  these  very  tables  that  Pepys,  to  his 
wife's  great  aggravation,  conducted  the  pretty  Mrs.  Knipp, 
and  here  they  drank,  ate  a  lobster,  and  sang  and  were 
"mighty  merry  till  almost  midnight." 

On  another  table  Tennyson  wrote  "Will  Waterproof's 
Lyrical  Monologue,'*  beginning: 

"0  plump  head  waiter  at  The  Cock, 
To  which  I  most  resort. 
How  goes  the  time?    'Tis  five  o'clock. 
Go  fetch  a  pint  of  port." 

At  still  another  table  Thackeray  was  accustomed  to  take 
his  chop  and  stout  — it  being  but  a  step  from  Punch's 

147 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

''Round  Table,''  with  its  discussions,  plans,  and  piles  of 
proofs,  to  a  quiet  corner  in  The  Cock.  And  then  he  loved 
a  good  dinner: 

'*I  am  a  diner-out,  and  live  in  London,*'  he  writes  in  one 
of  "Mr.  Brown's"  letters.  ''  I  protest,  as  I  look  back  at  the 
men  and  dinners  I  have  seen  in  the  last  week,  my  mind  is 
filled  with  manly  respect  and  pleasure.  How  good  they 
have  been !  how  admirable  the  entertainments !  how  worthy 
the  men ! 

"Let  me,  without  divulging  names,  and  with  a  cordial 
gratitude,  mention  a  few  of  those  whom  I  have  met  and 
who  have  all  done  their  duty. 

"Sir,  I  have  sat  at  table  with  a  great,  a  world-renowned 
statesman.  I  watched  him  during  the  progress  of  the  ban- 
quet —  I  am  at  liberty  to  say  that  he  enjoyed  it  like  a  man. 

"On  another  day  it  was  a  celebrated  literary  character. 
It  was  beautiful  to  see  him  at  his  dinner:  cordial  and 
generous,  jovial  and  kindly,  the  great  author  enjoyed  him- 
self as  the  great  statesman  —  may  he  long  give  us  good 
books  and  good  dinners! 

"Yet  another  day,  and  I  sat  opposite  to  a  Right  Rever- 
end Bishop.  My  lord,  I  was  pleased  to  see  good  thing 
after  good  thing  disappear  before  you,  and  think  no  man 
ever  better  became  that  rounded  episcopal  apron.  How 
amiable  he  was;  how  kind!  He  put  water  into  his  wine. 
Let  us  respect  the  moderation  of  the  Church. 

*'And  then  the  men  learned  in  the  law:  How  they  dine! 
what  hospitality,  what  splendour,  what  comfort,  what 
wine!  As  we  walked  away  very  gently  in  the  moonlight, 
only  three  days  since,  from  the   's,  a  friend  of  my 

148 


FLEET    STREET    FROM    COCK    TAVERN 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

youth  and  myself,  we  could  hardly  speak  for  gratitude: 
*Dear  sir,'  we  breathed  fervently,  *ask  us  soon  again.' 
One  never  has  too  much  at  those  perfect  banquets  —  no 
hideous  headaches  ensue,  or  horrid  resolutions  about 
adopting  Revalenta  Arabica  for  the  future  —  but  content- 
ment with  all  the  world,  light  slumbers,  joyful  waking  to 
grapple  with  the  morrow's  work.  Ah,  dear  Bob,  those 
lawyers  have  great  merits.  There  is  a  dear  old  judge  at 
whose  family  table  if  I  could  see  you  seated,  my  desire  in 
life  would  be  pretty  nearly  fulfilled.  If  you  make  yourself 
agreeable  there,  you  will  be  in  a  fair  way  to  get  on  in  the 
world.  But  you  are  a  youth  still.  Youths  go  to  balls: 
men  go  to  dinners." 

Often  when  he  was  supposed  to  be  dining  at  these  tables 
of  the  great,  he  was  tucked  away  in  some  quaint  tavern. 

"Instead  of  dancing  at  Almack's,"  writes  Walter  Besant, 
in  his  "Fifty  Years  Ago,"  "he  was  taking  his  chop  and 
stout  at  The  Cock;  instead  of  gambling  at  Crockford's, 
he  was  writing  'copy'  for  any  paper  which  would  take  it." 

And  it  was  all  he  could  afford  had  his  friends  but  known 
it  —  in  those  early  days  when  "all  that  he  wrote  was  not 
taken,  and  all  that  was  taken  was  not  approved" — when 
even  "  The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond"  was  so  little  thought 
of  at  Eraser's,  that  he  had  been  called  upon  to  shorten  it. 
"An  incident,"  says  TroUope,  "disagreeable  in  its  nature 
to  any  literary  gentleman,  and  likely  to  be  specially  so 
when  he  knows  that  his  provision  of  bread,  certainly  of 
improved  bread  and  butter,  is  at  stake." 

It  was  his  table  at  The  Cock  that  I  had  come  to  see  on 
this  Saturday  afternoon  —  the  only  afternoon  in  the  week 

151 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

when  the  room  would  be  free  of  guests,  every  shop  being 
cleared  of  customers  at  midday  in  modern  London  Town. 

Henry,  the  old  head  waiter  who  had  been  moved  across 
in  1887  with  the  fireplace  and  fittings,  shook  his  head  in 
answer  to  my  inquiry  as  to  the  traditions  connecting  the 
great  author  with  any  special  tables  in  the  place.  And 
so  did  the  flat-nosed  boy  who  sowed  the  seed  of  a  fresh  crop 
of  sawdust  from  a  tin  pan,  and  who  later  on  brought  up  an 
assortment  of  bread  and  cheese  cut  into  little  dominoes, 
which  he  scattered  over  the  sawdust  ''to  pizen  de  rats 
over  Sunday,"  he  explained.  And  so  did  the  proprietor, 
who  produced  a  big  book  filled  with  the  signatures  of  many 
celebrities  the  world  over,  who  had  eaten  "a  double"  and 
had  their  pewters  refilled.  But  careful  scrutinizing  failed 
to  find  any  record  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  name  among  the 
T's.  Neither  had  he  any  record  of  Pendennis  or  Warring- 
ton, who  had  their  quarters  in  Lamb  Court  in  the  Middle 
Temple,  but  five  minutes  away. 

But  I  had  already  made  up  my  mind.  Thackeray's  table 
would  be  hidden  away  in  some  corner,  out  of  reach  of  the 
man  who  came  in  late,  joggling  the  table  as  he  squeezed 
past.  It  would  be  near  a  window,  where  the  light  would 
come  in  over  his  left  shoulder  —  a  necessity  with  most 
authors.  It  would,  too,  be  near,  and  yet  far  enough  away 
from  the  fire  so  that  its  blaze  would  cheer  and  yet  not 
scorch;  and  so,  after  scanning  the  long  narrow  room,  I 
placed  him  at  the  table  on  the  left  of  my  sketch  —  the  one 
on  this  side  of  the  grate.  Here,  he  would  have  no  opposite 
neighbour,  there  being  only  room  for  one,  and  here,  too, 
his  repast  eaten  and  the  room  empty,  he  might,  as  was  his 

152 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

custom,  pull  a  wad  of  crumpled  sheets  from  his  coat-tail 
pocket  just  as  he  had  done  that  day  at  Evans's,  when  he 
exclaimed  to  Mr.  Lowell,  *'I  have  killed  the  Colonel!  the 
tears  which  had  been  swelling  his  lids  for  some  time  trickling 
down  his  face,  the  last  word  almost  an  inarticulate  sob." 

My  sketch  finished,  Henry  broiled  me  a  chop  and  brought 
me  a  mug,  and  I  squeezed  into  Mr.  Thackeray's  seat  and 
opened  my  napkin,  just  as  he  had  done  scores  of  times.  The 
chop  was  excellent,  and  so  were  the  contents  of  the  mug;  so 
were  the  encomiums  passed  upon  my  sketch  by  the  pro- 
prietor, Henry,  and  the  flat-nosed  boy  —  the  latter  sug- 
gesting that  it  was  "drawed  to  de  loife." 

N.  B.  —  Future  historians,  in  writing  of  this  important 
event,  will  please  not  get  the  dates  mixed  or  twisted,  as  so 
often  happens.  It  was  at  Mr.  Thackeray's  table  in  the  new 
Cock,  remember,  that  all  this  happened,  and  not  with 
Mr.  Thackeray  in  the  old. 


153 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  CHESHIRE  CHEESE 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  CHESHIRE  CHEESE 

OF  COURSE  he  came  here,  tucked  his  knees  under 
the  sharp  edges  of  the  heavy  oak  tables,  and  ordered 
the  dishes  and  brew  he  especially  liked.  This,  and 
other  like  resorts,  was  his  Bohemia,  and  Bohemia  he 
loved. 

"A  pleasant  land,"  he  says  in  "Philip"  —  "not  fenced 
with  drab  stucco  like  Tyburnia  or  Belgravia;  not  guarded 
by  a  huge  standing  army  of  footmen;  not  echoing  with  noble 
chariots;  not  replete  with  polite  chintz  drawing-rooms  and 
neat  tea-tables;  a  land  over  which  hangs  an  endless  fog, 
occasioned  by  much  tobacco;  a  land  of  chambers,  billiard- 
rooms,  supper-rooms,  oysters;  a  land  of  song;  a  land  where 
soda-water  flows  freely  in  the  morning;  a  land  of  tin  dish- 
covers  from  taverns,  and  frothing  porter;  a  land  of  lotus- 
eating  (with  lots  of  cayenne  pepper),  of  pulls  on  the  river, 
of  delicious  reading  of  novels,  magazines,  and  saunterings 
in  many  studios;  a  land  where  men  call  each  other  by  their 
Christian  names;  where  most  are  old,  where  almost  all  are 
young,  and  where,  if  a  few  oldsters  enter,  it  is  because  they 
have  preserved  more  tenderly  and  carefully  than  others 
their  youthful  spirits,  and  the  delightful  capacity  to  be  idle." 

157 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

And  the  Cheshire  Cheese,  then  as  now,  is  pure  Bohemia. 

If  the  dishes  did  not  tempt  him  —  particularly  a  famous 
pudding  of  lark  and  oysters,  steak  and  kidney  —  its  asso- 
ciations certainly  would,  for  it  was  near  here,  so  tradition 
goes,  that  Goldsmith  for  the  first  time  received  Johnson  at 
supper,  and  it  was  from  here  later  on.  Goldsmith  being 
pressed  for  his  rent,  that  Dr.  Johnson  set  poor  Goldsmith 
free. 

The  record  in  detail  is  worth  repeating,  as  it  gives  a  side 
light  on  the  lives  of  some  great  men. 

In  1760  Goldsmith  removed  to  No.  6  Wine  Office  Court, 
Fleet  Street,  where  he  occupied  more  respectable  lodgings 
than  any  to  which  he  had  before  aspired.  It  is  nearly 
opposite  the  well-known  Cheshire  Cheese  Tavern.  Here, 
Dr.  Johnson  first  visited  him  on  the  31st  of  May,  1761. 
He  came  —  his  clothes  new  and  his  wig  nicely  powdered, 
wishing,  as  he  explained  to  Percy  (of  the  "Reliques"),  who 
inquired  the  cause  of  such  unusual  neatness,  to  show  a 
better  example  to  Goldsmith,  whom  he  had  heard  of  as 
"justifying  his  disregard  of  cleanliness  and  decency  by  quot- 
ing his  practice."  It  was  from  his  lodgings  in  Wine  Office 
Court,  while  Goldsmith's  landlady  was  pressing  him  within 
doors  and  the  bailiff  without,  that  Dr.  Johnson  "received 
one  morning,"  so  his  great  friend  Boswell  reports  as  saying, 
"a  message  from  poor  Goldsmith  that  he  was  in  great  dis- 
tress, and  as  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  come  to  me,  begging 
that  I  would  come  to  him  as  soon  as  possible.  I  sent  him  a 
guinea,  and  promised  to  come  to  him  directly.  I  accord- 
ingly went  to  him  as  soon  as  I  was  dressed,  and  found  that 
his  landlady  had  arrested  him  for  his  rent,  at  which  he  was 

158 


»  t  «      e  »     • 

c     «  «     (.k  *       * 

t    •  •• •  «     • 

<  c       «  t  t 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

in  a  violent  passion.  I  perceived  that  he  had  already 
changed  my  guinea,  and  had  a  bottle  of  Madeira  and  a 
glass  before  him.  I  put  the  cork  into  the  bottle,  desired  he 
would  be  calm,  and  began  to  talk  to  him  of  the  means  by 
which  he  might  be  extricated.  He  then  told  me  that  he 
had  a  novel  ready  for  the  press,  which  he  produced  to  me. 
I  looked  into  it,  and  saw  its  merit;  told  the  landlady  I 
should  soon  return,  and,  having  gone  to  James  Newbery, 
a  bookseller,  sold  it  for  sixty  pounds.  I  brought  Gold- 
smith the  money,  and  he  discharged  his  rent,  not  without 
rating  his  landlady  in  a  high  tone  for  having  used  him  so 
ill." 

The  manuscript  lay  neglected  for  two  years,  and  was  then 
published  without  a  notion  of  its  future  popularity.  The 
world  has  since  known  it  as  *'The  Vicar  of  Wakefield." 

The  seat  is  still  shown  where  the  great  doctor  was  wont 
to  sit  dispensing  wisdom;  and  his  portrait,  which  hangs 
over  it  —  a  latter-day  addition  —  is  quite  clear  in  my 
sketch,  as  well  as  the  edge  of  the  table  and  the  window- 
sash  dividing  the  two  rooms. 

Closer  inspection  of  the  wood  of  the  seat  itself  reveals 
the  reverence  in  which  it  is  held.  To  have  eaten  a  chop 
and  drank  from  a  mug  while  at  rest  on  the  great  lexi- 
cographer's settee,  is  something  to  be  proud  of,  and  so  the 
fibre  of  the  wood  is  kept  at  high  polish  by  the  trousers  of 
thousands  of  globe-trotters  the  world  over,  just  as  the 
''Pope's  Toe"  is  kept  at  high  polish  by  the  lips  of  millions 
of  devotees. 

Although  Boswell  fails  to  mention  that  the  great  doctor 
ever  darkened  the  tavern's  doors,  many  of  my  brother 

161 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Americans  believe  this  reserved-seat  story.  Again,  they 
like  the  place,  and  I  do  not  wonder.  Cobwebs,  a  sanded 
floor,  low  ceilings,  narrow  seats,  a  general  appearance  of 
falling  to  pieces  —  a  draught  of  air  from  a  cool  court,  if  it  be 
hot,  and  a  cheery  soft-coal  fire  if  it  be  cold,  are  comforting 
contrasts  to  steam  heat  in  a  skyscraper. 

In  regard  to  my  own  belief  that  Mr.  Thackeray  was  an 
habitue  of  the  place,  I  admit  that  while  The  Cock  may  have 
been  two  or  three  blocks  nearer  to  Brick  Court,  where  he 
lived,  and  Hare  Court,  where  he  studied  law,  I  still  maintain 
that  the  Cheshire  Cheese  was  just  as  delightful  and  even  more 
convenient  for  Welsh  rare-bits  and  good  old  glee-singing  at 
midnight,  than  the  "Cave  of  Harmony.'*  If  Captain  Cos- 
tigan  himself  was  not  met  staggering  in  the  narrow  alley- 
way, some  other  equally  bibulous  gentleman  could  be 
seen  rolling  out.  These  sort  of  things  have  been  happening 
for  years,  at  the  Cheshire  Cheese,  and  may  be  repeated  for 
all  I  know  any  day  of  the  coming  week. 

My  sketch  will  give  you  a  fair  idea  of  the  interior  as  you 
enter  the  main  room,  the  floor  of  which  is  level  with  the 
street,  but  nothing  that  I  or  anybody  else  could  do  with  brush 
or  pen  could  convey  to  you  the  faintest  idea  of  its  age  and 
mustiness— of  the  cobwebs  embroidering  the  corners  of  the 
ceiling;  of  the  sawdust  and  its  smell  covering  the  floor;  of 
the  damp  mouldy  odours  that  drift  in  from  the  damp  alley 
outside,  reeking  with  grime  and  soggy  soot;  of  the  cramped 
little  bar,  the  size  of  a  big  packing  box,  in  which  are  crowded 
as  many  thirsty  men  as  can  be  squeezed  in;  of  the  breakneck 
stairs  that  go  rickety  split  to  the  cellar  below,  where  there  is 
running  water  and  a  towel;  or  the  staggering  flight  that 

162 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

twists  up  to  the  floor  above,  where  there  is  a  cook-range  and 
funny-shaped  "coppers"  of  pottery,  in  which  the  famous 
pudding  is  cooked;  to  say  nothing  of  the  cramped,  tumbled- 
down  rooms  above  where  certain  choice  spirits,  members  of 
several  clubs,  still  meet  on  certain  nights  in  the  week  and 
hold  high  revel  —  just  as  happened,  I  dare  say,  in  Mr. 
Thackeray's  time. 

I  ordered  a  chop,  of  course,  and  a  mug  of  'arf  and  'arf,  and 
found  a  table  for  Evins  where  he  too  could  eat  and  drink 
at  his  leisure  —  the  taxi  having  been  backed  up  behind  a 
pile  of  brick  where  Bobby  said  he  would  keep  an  eye  on  it. 
I  had  to  play  havoc  however  with  the  arrangement  of  the 
room  before  I  opened  my  easel.  There  were  too  many 
things  in  one  place  —  mostly  tables,  and,  as  I  explained,  I 
could  see  nothing  of  the  interior  either  over  or  under  them. 

Everybody  came  at  once  to  my  assistance.  The  tables 
were  picked  up  bodily,  the  settees  shoved  back,  and  a  way 
cleared  for  my  stool  and  easel.  The  news  that  an  Ameri- 
can was  taking  notes,  with  an  eye  to  their  being  printed, 
including  lifelike  portraits  of  the  staff,  had  gone  through  the 
place  like  wildfire. 

At  the  first  stroke  of  my  coal,  business  of  every  kind  came 
to  a  standstill.  Even  the  trickle  of  froth,  flowing  from  the 
big  keg  of  ale  on  the  counter  of  the  small  bar,  dried  up. 
Soon  proprietor,  head  waiter,  all  the  subs,  both  of  the  bar- 
maids, and  five  minutes  later  —  as  soon  as  the  news  reached 
the  upper  floor  —  two  of  the  cooks  —  fat  comfortable  cooks, 
with  the  marks  of  their  profession  spattered  over  their  per- 
sons— were  grouped  around  my  easel.  Some  were  standing 
on  settees,  others  on  tables — wherever  they  could  see  best. 

163 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Even  the  few  remaining  guests  (it  was  now  after  three 
o'clock)  let  their  steaks  and  kidneys  get  cold  and  their 
mugs  "go  dead"  to  watch  the  process. 

I  "sat  them  up,"  of  course,  when  it  was  all  over  and  was 
told  to  come  again  and  welcome,  and  not  to  forget  to  send 
a  copy  of  the  newspaper,  Evins  gathering  up  as  we  left 
the  addresses  of  a  number  of  individuals,  male  and  female, 
who  would  be  much  "obleeged"  if  I  would  be  so  kind." 

Hurry  up,  you  belated  ones  who  have  not  yet  seen  the 
Cheshire  Cheese.  It  is  the  last  of  the  Inns  —  the  oldest 
relic  of  its  kind  in  all  London. 


164 


CHAPTER  XIV 
FLEET  STREET  AND  ST.  PAUL'S 


CHAPTER  XIV 
FLEET  STREET  AND  ST.  PAUL'S 

STOPPING  my  taxi,  as  I  did,  on  the  edge  of  the  decline 
that  sweeps  toward  old  St.  Paul's,  watching  the  rush 
and  choke  of  the  traffic,  it  was  hard  for  me  to  believe 
that  right  under  my  wheels  flowed  the  Fleet  Ditch  — the 
greatest  of  London's  sewers.  What  goes  on  down  below 
the  crust  of  asphalt  is  just  as  well  hidden  from  sight.  The 
merciful  rain,  no  doubt,  helps  in  the  cleansing,  and  so  does 
the  emptying  of  countless  tubs  —  the  Englishman  being  the 
best  scrubbed  biped  on  earth.  What  goes  on  above  is  in 
clear  sight  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night,  for  nobody 
ever  goes  to  bed  in  Fleet  Street.  Here  centre  the  thousand 
wires  that  bring  the  news  of  the  world  to  as  many  sleepless 
presses,  and  here  the  rumble  of  delivery  wagons,  loaded 
with  tons  of  journals,  is  heard  from  midnight  to  dawn. 

It  has  always  been  the  same  story.  Many  of  the  presses 
of  the  great  publishers  and  printers  have  dated  back  into 
the  last  century  and  before.  The  printing  office  of  Richard 
Tottel,  law  stationers  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII  pounded 
away  here.  At  the  angle  of  Chancery  Lane  gate  Izaak 
Walton  had  his  "  Compleat  Angler"  printed.  Hard  by  lived 
Drayton  and  Abraham  Cowley,  whose  father  was  a  type- 

167 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

setter;  and  Wynkyn  de  Worde,  the  famous  printer  whose 
sign  was  the  Falcon. 

Here,  too,  along  its  narrow  sidewalks,  the  unknown 
Michael  Angelo  Titmarsh  was  wont  to  make  his  disheartened 
way  from  one  printing  office  to  another,  in  his  search  for  a 
publisher;  and  here,  within  walking  distance  of  where  I  sat 
perched  up  in  my  cab,  my  imagination  in  full  play,  Mr. 
William  Makepeace  Thackeray,  but  a  few  years  later,  cor- 
rected the  proof  of  the  pages  which  were  then  making  him 
famous. 

These  earlier  years  had  been  bitter  indeed  to  the  young 
author.  He  had  failed  as  an  attorney;  he  had  been  cheated 
out  of  his  patrimony  by  a  card-sharper;  he  had  given  up 
all  hopes  of  being  an  artist,  and  now,  at  twenty-six  years  of 
age,  had  again  started  life,  this  time  as  an  author,  and  in 
competition,  too,  with  Dickens  who  was  one  year  his  junior, 
and  who  at  this  time  (1837-8)  had  reached  almost  the  zenith 
of  his  reputation. 

All  this  was  well  known  at  the  time.  Macready  says,  in 
his  Diary:  "At  Garrick  Club  where  I  dined  and  saw  the 
papers.  Met  Thackeray,  who  has  spent  all  his  fortune,  and 
is  now  about  to  settle  in  Paris,  I  believe,  as  an  artist." 

Just  as  I  had  followed  him  the  day  before  into  The  Cock, 
and  occupied  his  seat  at  table,  so  now  I  studied  the  street  over 
which  he  had  dragged  his  weary  steps,  wondering,  among 
other  things,  whether  he  had  stopped,  as  I  had,  to  measure 
with  his  eye  the  swing  and  crush  of  the  traffic  around 
him;  wondering,  too,  whether  the  great  dome  of  St.  Paul's, 
dominating  the  cavernous  gloom  of  the  struggling,  dirt- 
begrimed  city,  had  not  brought  him,  as  it  did  me,  a  note  of 

168 


FLEET  STREET   AND    ST.    PAULS 


•  •   •  • 

•  •   •  • 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

dignity  and  rest.  He  loved  it,  I  know,  and  loved  to  be 
beneath  its  shadow.  One  day,  when  Fields  was  with  him, 
he  was  mentioning  the  various  sights  he  had  seen,  when 
Thackeray  interrupted.  **But  you  haven't  seen  the  great- 
est one  yet,"  he  said.  "Go  with  me  to-day  to  St.  Paul's, 
and  hear  the  charity  children  sing."  So  they  went,  and 
Mr.  Fields  noticed  that  Thackeray  had  his  head  bowed, 
and  that  his  whole  frame  shook  with  emotion  "as  the  chil- 
dren of  poverty  rose  to  pour  out  their  anthem  of  praise." 

Thackeray  himself  tells  us  about  it  in  one  of  the  lec- 
tures on  the  Georges.  "Five-thousand  charity  children, 
like  nosegays,  and  with  sweet,  fresh  voices,  sing  the  hymn 
which  makes  every  heart  thrill  with  praise  and  happiness. 
I  have  seen  a  hundred  grand  sights  in  the  world  —  corona- 
tions, Parisian  splendours,  Crystal  Palace  openings.  Pope's 
chapels  with  their  processions  of  long-tailed  cardinals  and 
quavering  choirs  of  fat  soprani,  but  thinking  in  all  Chris- 
tendom there  is  no  such  sight  as  Charity  Children's  Day. 
Non  Angli,  sed  Angeli.  As  one  looks  at  that  beautiful 
multitude  of  innocents,  as  the  first  note  strikes;  indeed,  one 
can  almost  fancy  that  cherubs  are  singing."  And  else- 
where he  has  written:  "To  see  a  hundred  boys  marshalled 
in  a  chapel  or  old  hall;  to  hear  their  sweet,  fresh  voices  when 
they  chant,  and  look  in  their  brave,  calm  faces;  I  say,  does 
not  the  sight  and  sound  of  them  smite  you,  some]iow,  with 
a  pang  of  exquisite  kindness." 

The  surge  and  crush  is,  no  doubt,  greater  to-day  than  it 
was  in  Thackeray's  time.  The  millions  have  pressed  closer 
and  the  fight  for  footing  has  become  more  acute.    But  the 

171 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

great  church  still  retains  its  unruffled  dignity,  with  that 
peculiar  aloofness  from  everything  around  and  beneath  it, 
which  has  characterized  it  since  the  day  of  its  birth:  the 
calm,  silent  dignity  of  the  Sphinx,  brooding  as  it  sits,  the 
silent  shadowed  past  an  open  book,  the  vivid  present  an 
unsolved  wonder. 

It  was  this  last  that  I  had  come  to  see,  and  record  —  that 
uncanny  roar  and  clash  that  beats  against  the  blackened 
walls  of  the  very  church  itself.  But  where  could  I  find 
some  coign  of  vantage  from  which  to  express  it  on  my 
canvas? 

Evins,  as  was  his  habit  in  difficult  situations,  solved  the 
problem.  Indeed,  now  I  look  back  upon  my  experiences, 
Evins  solved  most  of  my  problems.  We  would  pull,  he 
suggested,  up  in  front  of  the  Cheshire  Cheese  about  lunch 
hour,  and  then  both  the  crowd  and  Bobby  would  look  upon 
our  wheel-room  as  a  matter  of  right  —  there  being  a  con- 
tinuous line  of  taxies,  hansoms,  and  four-wheelers  in  front 
of  its  narrow  slit  of  an  entrance  "around  one  o'clock." 

But  this  time,  to  my  chagrin,  the  ruse  did  not  work  — 
not  any  longer  than  it  took  to  set  up  my  easel. 

"Beg  yer  pardon,  sir,  but  'ow  long  be  you  thinkin'  o' 
staying 'ere?" 
"About  two  hours,  Bobby." 

"Well,  I  don't  know,  sir.  I'll  try  to  keep  'em  off,  but 
it's  a  bad  time  o'  the  day.  They  do  be  getting  out  their 
stuff,  and  these  'ere  express  wagons  will  be  drivin'  up. 
I'll  have  to  move  yer  furder  along  mebbe,  or  back;  'pends 
on  'ow  they  come.     I'll  do  me  best,  sir." 

The  easel  was  up  now,  Evins  sharpening  charcoals  and 

172 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

picking  up  my  rubber  for  me  every  time  I  dropped  it.  I 
work  with  both  hands  —  the  flat  of  the  left,  and  the  fingers 
of  the  right. 

"Come,  move  on,  won't  ye?  Ye  see  what  the  gentle- 
man's doing  —  ye  needn't  crawl  down  his  throat."  This 
to  a  bread-line  of  boys  edging  along  the  footboard,  to  look 
over  my  shoulder. 

Another  Bobby  joined  in.  He  had  seen  the  mob  from 
up  the  street  and  had  moved  down  to  find  out  what  it  was 
all  about.  Evins  explained,  and  I  kept  at  work,  losing 
only  the  few  seconds  necessary  to  free  one  hand  and  give 
him  a  respectful  salute. 

Every  peddler  in  Fleet  Street  now  swooped  down  — 
suspender  men,  postal-cards  men,  sellers  of  shoestrings, 
blacking,  neckties,  eye-glasses,  soap,  perfumery  —  every- 
thing that  could  be  carried  on  a  tray  or  strung  around  their 
necks.  These  while  the  two  Bobbies  were  straightening 
out  a  cart  tangle,  formed  a  circle  about  me,  shouting 
their  wares  —  some  of  them  being  thrust  under  my  chin. 

Then  a  calm  ensued  —  so  dead  a  calm  that  I  looked  about 
to  find  the  cause.  Across  the  street,  oh  a  pile  of  bricks  — 
the  debris  of  a  building  —  the  head  of  a  photographer  was 
hidden  under  a  black  cloth.  The  lens  pointed  my  way. 
With  him  a  moment  later  came  his  crowd. 

"Would  you  tell  me  what  you  are  doing?" 

I  pointed  to  my  sketch. 

"Yes,  I  see,  but  what  for? " 

"For  the  fun  of  it,  principally." 

"Yes,  but  this  is  a  hired  taxi  —  comes  rather  high  for 
fun,  don't  it?" 

178 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

I  nodded  and  kept  at  work. 

"Would  you  tell  me  where  you're  from  and  what's  your 
name?" 

I  laid  down  my  holder  and  looked  up.  Matters  were 
drifting  into  the  personal. 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  it?" 

"Nothing  to  you,  but  it's  a  good  deal  to  me.  I'm  from 
the  MirrorJ' 

The  oflTicer's  voice  now  broke  in. 

"I'll  have  to  ask  ye  to  move  on,  sir.  I  'ate  to  disturb 
ye,  but " 

"All  right,  ofTicer  —  just  a  minute  more  on  the  dome, 
—  the  sun  is  striking  it  now.  Take  a  look  while  I  put 
it  in." 

It  was  Greek  to  Bobby,  but  I  had  excited  his  curiosity 
and  gained  his  attention  long  enough  for  me  to  get  a  high 
light  in  the  centre  column  surrounding  the  dome. 

"There  —  open  the  door,  Evins,  and  let  me  out.  Any- 
where now  you  say,  ofTicer  —  shall  I  send  her  off  the 
street?" 

"No  —  move  her  down  a  bit,  and  let  them  goods  wagons 
get  closer.    Thank  ye,  sir.     I'll  smoke  it  after  dinner." 

The  photographer  bore  down  again.  He  now  had  his 
instrument  under  his  arm  —  the  black  cloth  around  his 
throat. 

"American,  aren't  you?" 
"Yes.    How  did  you  know?" 

"Heard  you  talk.  Won't  you  give  me  your  name  and 
tell  me  what  you're  doing?  One  of  our  editors  saw  you  at 
work  and  sent  me  out." 

174 


IN  THACKERAYS'  LONDON 

"Will  it  do  you  any  good?" 

'' Rather  r 

"How   much?" 

"Might  be  ten  bob  —  might  be  more.'* 

And  that's  how  Evins  and  I  got  into  the  picture  papers. 


175 


CHAPTER  XV 

HARE  AND   LAMB   COURT 
MIDDLE  TEMPLE 


CHAPTER  XV 

HARE  AND  LAMB  COURT 
MIDDLE  TEMPLE 

ON  THE  left  of  the  hooded  doorway,  as  seen  in  my 
sketch,  are  the  chambers  in  which  Thackeray 
studied  law  with  Taprell  —  a  profession  to  which 
he  never  took  kindly.  In  a  letter  to  his  mother  —  he  was 
then  in  his  twenty-first  year  —  he  sketched  himself  in  a 
blue  coat  on  a  high  stool,  with  a  queer  client  in  the  shape 
of  an  old  gentleman  with  an  umbrella,  standing  on  one  side, 
and  a  very  small  clerk  in  a  green  coat  on  the  other,  trying 
to  get  at  his  master  with  five  folios  by  a  stepladder. 

In  another  epistle  he  writes : 

"May  22,  1832.  .  .  .  The  sun  won't  shine  into 
Taprell's  chambers,  and  the  high  stools  don't  blossom  and 
bring  forth  buds.  .  .  .  I  do  so  long  for  fresh  air,  and 
fresh  butter  I  would  say  only  it  isn't  romantic.  .  .  . 
Yesterday  I  took  a  long  walk  to  Kensington  Gardens,  and 
had  a  pleasant  stroll  on  the  green  banks  of  the  Serpentine. 
I  wonder  people  don't  frequent  them  more:  they  are  far 
superior  to  any  of  the  walks  in  Paris  that  are  so  much 
admired  and  talked  of." 

It  is  from  these  same  chambers  at  No.  1  Hare  Court, 

179 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

that  Thackeray,  giving  up  for  the  time  both  Taprell's 
and  the  law,  "strode  away  for  a  twelve  hours'  stretch  over 
the  moors  of  Cornwall  to  plunge  headlong  into  the  feverish 
delights  of  platform  and  canvassing  —  perhaps  the  keenest 
form  of  interest  and  excitement  that  can  occupy  the  human 
brain.  It  is  impossible  once  to  indulge  in  it,  and,  for 
whatever  reason,  to  give  it  up,  without  feeling  a  blank  in  the 
activities  of  life  which  is  very  difficult  to  fill.  One  can  imag- 
ine how  Thackeray  threw  himself  into  the  battle. 

But  alas  for  Taprell's!  alas  for  the  monthly  income!  and 
alas  for  the  woolsack!" 

Of  this  escapade  he  writes  to  his  mother  on  June  25, 1832, 
the  letter  being  dated  at  Cornwall: 

"Are  you  surprised,  dear  Mother,  at  the  direction?  Cer- 
tainly not  more  prepared  for  it  than  I  was  myself,  but  you 
must  know  that  on  Tuesday  in  last  week  I  went  to  breakfast 
with  Charles  BuUer,  and  he  received  a  letter  from  his  con- 
stituents at  Liskeard  requesting  him  immediately  to  come 
down;  he  was  too  ill,  but  instead  deputed  Arthur  BuUer 
and  myself  —  so  off  we  set  that  same  night  by  the  mail, 
arrived  at  Plymouth  the  next  day,  and  at  Liskeard  the 
day  after,  where  we  wrote  addresses,  canvassed  farmers, 
and  dined  with  attorneys.     .     .     . 

"I  have  been  lying  awake  this  morning  meditating  on  the 
wise  and  proper  manner  I  shall  employ  my  fortune  in  when 
I  come  of  age,  which,  if  I  live  so  long,  will  take  place  in 
three  weeks.  First,  I  do  not  intend  to  quit  my  little  cham- 
bers in  the  Temple,  then  I  will  take  a  regular  monthly  in- 
come which  I  will  never  exceed.  .  .  .  God  bless  you, 
dear  Mother;  write  directly  and  give  your  orders.     .     .    . 

180 


HARE    COURT 


•     c 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Charles  BuUer  comes  down  at  the  end  of  next  week — if  you 
want  me  sooner  I  will  come,  if  not  I  should  like  to  wait  for 
the  Reform  rejoicings  which  are  to  take  place  on  his  arrival, 
particularly  as  I  have  had  a  great  share  in  the  canvassing." 
"In  1834,"  says  Rideing,  "he  was  called  to  the  bar,  and 
for  some  time  he  occupied  chambers  in  the  venerable  build- 
ings with  the  late  Tom  Taylor.  His  rooms  were  then  in  an 
adjoining  Court,  at  Number  10  Crown  Office  Row.  Philip 
had  chambers  in  the  Temple,  and  there,  also,  in  classic 
Lamb's  Court,  Pendennis  and  Warrington  were  located 
.  .  .  Warrington  smoking  his  cutty  pipe,  and  writing 
his  articles  —  the  fine-hearted  fellow,  the  unfortunate 
gentleman,  the  unpedantic  scholar,  who  took  Pendennis  by 
the  hand  and  introduced  him  to  Grub  Street  when  that 
young  unfortunate  came  to  the  end  of  his  means     .    .     ." 

A  dark,  muggy,  London  day  it  was,  when  I  opened  my 
easel  in  front  of  the  house  that  had  seen  the  young  fellow's 
first  efforts  to  conquer  a  career,  for  to-day,  as  in  Thackeray's 
time,  the  sun  "does  not  shine  in  Taprell's  Chambers,"  in 
Hare  Court,  nor  out  of  it  for  that  matter.  Nor  was  there 
anybody  about.  All  the  rush,  all  the  roar,  and  under-hum 
of  the  great  city  was  gone  as  soon  as  I  dived  under  the  arch- 
way leading  out  of  Fleet  Street,  and  made  my  way  down  a 
narrow  lane,  into  the  solemn  quiet  of  the  Middle  Temple. 
And  the  quiet  continued  as  I  passed  down  and  into  the 
small  square  of  Brick  Court  where  Thackeray  had  his 
chambers,  and  so  on  into  the  various  Inns  of  Court  one 
after  another  —  Pump  Court,  Lamb  Court,  Crown  Office 
Row,  Hare  Court,  and  the  others. 

183 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

But  desolate  and  abandoned  as  they  were,  the  watchful 
eyes  of  the  Imperial  Government  were  open  upon  their  soli- 
tudes. 

''I  presume  you  have  a  permit,  sir,"  came  from  a  pleasant 
speaking  individual  with  some  kind  of  livery  decorating  his 
portly  person  —  this  before  I  had  opened  my  easel.  In- 
deed, he  had  been  already  snuffing  around  our  heels,  as  a 
dog  follows  a  basket,  wondering  what  Evins  was  going  to 
do  with  my  kit  when  it  was  unstrapped. 

"Yes,  I  have  a  permit,"  and  I  drew  the  paper  from  my 
pocket.  It  had  been  sent  me  the  day  before  by  a  good 
friend  of  mine  —  a  distinguished  member  of  the  bar  — 
Queen's  Counsel,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 

"Yes,  sir;  all  right,  sir;  we  do  have  to  be  rather  particular, 
sir." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  sir,  you  see,  sir "  and  he  paused. 

"Never  heard  of  anybody  making  off  with  a  pair  of 
marble  steps,  did  you?"  I  inquired. 

"No,  sir." 

"Nor  of  an  iron  railing,  or  chimney,  or  some  little  thing 
like  that  being  tucked  under  a  visitor's  arm  and  carried  off 
as  a  souvenir?" 

"No,  sir  —  not  as  I  knows  on.  But  it's  all  right,  sir. 
Thank  ye,  sir,"  and  a  coin  of  the  realm  found  its  way  down 
his  side  pocket.  "If  ye  want  me,  sir,  I'm  outside  there,  and 
if  I  can  do  anything  I  should  be " 

But  I  was  already  at  work. 

Nothing  I  had  yet  seen  and  studied  in  my  search  for 
picturesque  material  for  this  book,  had  been  so  satisfying. 

184 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Every  square  yard  of  the  surface  had  echoed  to  the  tread 
of  Thackeray's  feet,  or  those  of  his  characters.  The  rooms 
on  the  third  floor,  over  the  entrance  of  the  building  in 
Lamb  Court  were  those  which  Warrington  and  Pendennis 
occupied.  The  vines  may  not  have  been  so  thick  in  their 
day,  and  there  have  been  some  repairs  here  and  there,  but 
otherwise  the  outside  is  quite  as  when  the  two  young  men 
made  it  their  home  and  the  friendship  between  Warrington 
and  Pendennis  grew  the  closer.  They  had  met  at  the  mess, 
and  when  the  dinner  was  over  Warrington  had  asked  Arthur 
where  he  was  going. 

"I  thought  of  going  home  to  dress,  and  hear  Grisi  in 
*  Norma,'"  Pen  said. 

"Are  you  going  to  meet  anybody  there?"  he  asked. 

Pen  said:  *'No  —  only  to  hear  the  music,"  of  which  he 
was  very  fond. 

"You  had  much  better  come  home  and  smoke  a  pipe  with 
me,"  said  Warrington  —  "a  very  short  one.  Come,  I 
live  close  by  in  Lamb  Court,  and  we'll  talk  over  Boniface 
and  old  times." 

With  the  result  that  "Ere  long  Pen  gave  up  his  lodgings 
in  St.  James's,  to  which  he  had  migrated  on  quitting  his 
hotel,  and  found  it  was  much  more  economical  to  take  up 
his  abode  with  Warrington  in  Lamb  Court,  and  furnish 
and  occupy  his  friend's  vacant  room  there.  For  it  must 
be  said  of  Pen,  that  no  man  was  more  easily  led  than  he  to 
do  a  thing,  when  it  was  a  novelty,  or  when  he  had  a  mind  to 
it.  And  Pidgeon,  the  youth,  and  Flanagan,  the  laundress, 
divided  their  allegiance  now  between  Warrington  and 
Pen." 

185 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Here,  too,  came  Major  Pendennis,  Pen's  uncle. 

"When  Major  Pendennis  reached  that  dingy  portal  of 
the  Upper  Temple,  it  was  about  twelve  o'clock  in  the 
day;  and  he  was  directed  by  a  civil  personage  with  a  badge 
and  a  white  apron,  through  some  dark  alleys,  and  under 
various  melancholy  archways  each  more  dismal  than  the 
other,  until  finally  he  reached  Lamb  Court.  If  it  was  dark 
in  Pall  Mall,  what  was  it  in  Lamb  Court?  Candles  were 
burning  in  many  of  the  rooms  there  ^^ — in  the  pupil-room  of 
Mr.  Hodgeman,  the  special  pleader,  where  six  pupils  were 
scribbling  declarations  under  the  tallow;  in  Sir  Hokey 
Walker's  clerk's  room,  where  the  clerk,  a  person  far  more 
gentlemanlike  and  cheerful  in  appearance  than  the  cele- 
brated counsel,  his  master,  was  conversing  in  a  patronizing 
manner  with  the  managing  clerk  of  an  attorney  at  the  door; 
and  in  Curling  the  wig-maker's  melancholy  shop,  where, 
from  behind  the  feeble  glimmer  of  a  couple  of  lights,  large 
sergeants'  and  judges'  wigs  were  looming  drearily,  with  the 
blank  blocks  looking  at  the  lamp-post  in  the  court.  Two 
little  clerks  were  playing  at  toss-half  penny  under  that 
lamp.  A  laundress  in  pattens  passed  in  at  one  door,  a 
newspaper  boy  issued  from  another.  A  porter,  whose 
white  apring  was  faintly  visible,  paced  up  and  down.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  conceive  a  place  more  dismal,  and 
the  Major  shuddered  to  think  that  any  one  should  select 
such  a  residence.  'Good  God!'  he  said,  *the  poor  boy 
mustn't  live  on  here.'  The  exquisite  climbed  up  the  black 
stairs  until  he  came  to  the  third  story,  where,  at  the  sound 
of  his  footsteps  a  great  voice  inquired:  'Is  that  the  beer? ' " 

And  to  these  same  dismal  rooms  Colonel  Newcome  brought 

186 


te 


/#/*-.., 


\ 


LAMB    COURT 


^^«l^Ml^t,^^;i^^;it^^.ili,L.  j  ^  £ii|!*fi; 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

little  Clive,  who  had  come  as  a  boy  to  Charter  House,  just 
before  Pen  left  for  the  University. 

In  Pump  Court,  there  lived  the  Honourable  Algernon 
Percy  Deuceace,  the  distinguished  card-sharper,  while 
within  reach  of  a  mug  of  beer  —  so  near  that  the  bubbles 
would  hold  out  until  the  mug  arrived  —  were  the  Inns  and 
Taverns  made  famous  in  Thackeray's  pages,  one  of  them, 
Shepherd's  Inn,  being  kept  by  Mrs.  Bolton,  assisted  by  her 
daughter  Fanny,  whose  story  is  told  in  "Pendennis,"  while 
Captain  Costigan  and  Mr.  Bows  lived  in  the  third  floor  at 
No.  4. 

These  coinings  of  his  brain,  we  can  be  sure,  were  the  result 
of  his  early  life  spent  in  these  same  courts  and  chambers. 

For  as  Rideing  says,  *'The  man  of  letters  cannot  but  love 
the  place  which  has  been  inhabited  by  so  many  of  his 
brethren,  and  peopled  by  their  creations,  as  real  to  us  at 
this  day  as  the  authors  whose  children  they  were. 

"Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  walking  in  the  Temple  garden," 
says  Mr.  Thackeray  "and  discoursing  with  Mr.  Spectator 
about  the  beauties  in  hoops  and  patches  who  are  sauntering 
over  the  grass,  is  just  as  lively  a  figure  to  me,  as  old  Samuel 
Johnson  rolling  through  the  fog  with  the  Scotch  gentleman 
at  his  heels,  on  their  way  to  Mr.  Goldsmith's  chambers  in 
Brick  court,  or  Harry  Fielding,  with  inked  ruffles  and  a  wet 
towel  round  his  head,  dashing  off  articles  at  midnight  for  the 
Couent  Garden  Journal,  while  the  printer's  boy  is  asleep  in 
the  passage." 

What  of  alterations,  scrapings,  patchings  up  and  fillings 
in  have  taken  place  in  these  various  courts  and  their  sur- 

189 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

Foundings,  I  have  not  troubled  myself  to  find  out.  Nothing 
looks  new  in  London  after  the  fogs  and  soot  of  one  winter 
have  wreaked  their  vengeance  upon  it.  Whether  the  f ag ade 
is  of  brick,  stone  or  stucco,  depends  entirely  on  what  the  pre- 
vailing winds,  whirling  the  smoke  aside,  have  saved  it  from, 
or  what  some  kindly  water  spout  has  wrought,  scouring  as 
it  drenches  —  as  may  be  seen  in  many  of  the  statues  on 
Burlington  House,  where  a  head,  arm,  or  part  of  a  pedestal 
chair  has  been  kept  white  by  a  constant  douche. 

As  for  me,  I  am  glad  that  these  old  haunts  of  Mr.  Thack- 
eray and  his  characters  are  even  blacker  to-day  than  they 
might  have  been  in  his  time.  For  the  soot  and  grime  be- 
comes them,  and  London  as  well  for  that  matter.  A  great 
impressionist,  this  smoke-smudger,  and  wiper-out  of  detail; 
this  believer  in  masses  and  simple  surfaces  this  destroyer 
of  gingerbread  ornaments,  petty  mouldings,  and  cheap 
flutings ! 

Restored  or  not,  it  is  the  same  old  Middle  Temple, 
hidden  away  from  the  turmoil  of  the  great  city,  the  home 
of  the  recluse  and  the  student.  It  is  also  the  home  of  my 
friends,  and  so  I  shall  leave  my  card  again  on  Mr.  Thack- 
eray at  No.  2  Brick  Court,  and  on  Messrs.  Warrington  and 
Pendennis  at  their  chambers  on  the  third  floor  of  Lamb 
Court,  and  on  one  or  two  others  in  Fig  Tree  and  Pump 
Courts,  and  shall  hope  to  find  them  at  home  the  very  .next 
time  I  go  to  London. 


190 


CHAPTER  XVI 
LONDON  BRIDGE 


CHAPTER  XVI 
LONDON  BRIDGE 

AUTHORS,  poets,  statesmen,  soldiers,  painters,  mer- 
chants, civilians,  cut-throats,  and  other  nimble- 
fingered  gentlemen  have,  from  time  to  time,  been 
either  identified  with  London  Bridge  itself,  or  with  some  of 
its  nearby  features. 

No  less  a  person  than  the  immortal  John  Bunyan,  that 
worthy  chronicler  of  the  progress  of  the  pilgrim,  had  his 
lodgings  at  one  time  on  the  Bridge  itself  —  when  it  was  a 
sort  of  Ponte  Vecchio  of  the  period.  Philip  Massinger,  the 
author  of  "The  British  Theatre,"  is  buried  in  the  Church- 
yard of  St.  Mary  Overy,  afterward  St.  Saviour's,  South- 
wark,  "at  the  end  of  London  Bridge."  Sir  Thomas  More, 
having  lost  his  head  on  Tower  Hill,  had  that  portion  of  his 
body  "putt  upon  London  Bridge  where  as  trayter's  heads 
are  sett  upon  poles,  and  having  remained  some  moneths, 
there  being  to  be  cast  into  the  Thames,  because  roome 
should  be  made  for  diverse  others  who  in  plentiful  sorte 
suffered  martyrdome  for  the  same  supremacie;  shortly 
after  it  was  brought  by  his  daughter  Margarett,  lease 
—  as  she  stoutly  affirmed  before  the  Councill,  being 
called  before  them  for  the  same  matter  —  it  should  be 

193 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

foode  for  fishes  which  she  buried  where  she  thought 
fittest." 

Samuel  Pepys,  after  regaling  himself  at  The  Cock  in 
Fleet  with  Mrs.  Knipp  and  other  ladies  of  his  acquaintance 
would  betake  himself  to  "the  Beare  Inn,  Southwark  at  the 
foote  of  London  Bridge."  The  divine  William  lived  as 
late  as  1609,  says  Knight  in  his  "London,"  in  the  street 
known  as  Clink  Street,  Southwark,  during  which  time  he 
was  associated  with  the  Globe  Theatre  on  the  Bank  side, 
which  was  built  in  1594,  and  was  under  the  management 
of  the  same  Company  as  the  Blackfriar's,  but  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Thames,  and  not  far  from  the  southern  end  of 
Old  London  Bridge.  John  Suckling,  whom  Aubrey  de- 
scribed as  "an  extraordinary  accomplished  gentleman  who 
grew  famous  at  Court  for  his  readie  sparkling  witt,  as  being 
uncomparably  readie  at  repartying,  and  as  the  greatest 
gallant  of  his  time,"  and  who  "died  a  bachelor  in  Paris, 
and  of  poyson,"  was  also  a  frequenter  at  the  Bear-at-the- 
Bridge-Foot.  "One  of  the  best  bowlers  of  his  time  in  Eng- 
land," continues  Aubrey.  "He  play'd  at  Cards  rarely  well 
and  did  use  to  practise  by  himself  abed,  and  there  studyed 
the  best  way  of  managing  the  Cards.  I  remember  his 
Sisters  comeing  to  the  Piccadillo,  Bowling  Green,  crying  for 
feare  he  should  lose  all  their  portions." 

With  all  these  memories,  traditions  and  historical  hap- 
penings, linked  with  its  very  existence,  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  Mr.  Thackeray  was  not  as  fully  conversant 
with  its  associations  and  surroundings  as  he  was  with  St. 
Paul's,  or  Fleet  Street.  And  yet,  I  can  find  only  the  most 
casual  reference  to  it  in  his  books. 

194 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

This  IS  more  remarkable  because  many  of  his  brother 
authors  had  sought  inspiration  in  and  about  these  same 
blackened  nooks  and  corners,  and  had  proved  their  value 
as  settings  for  fiction. 

Mr.  Dickens,  who  both  glorified  and  made  real  many  of 
its  forgotten  and  overlooked  quarters,  had  in  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career,  revived  for  his  readers  in  the 
"Pickwick  Papers,"  "that  queer  old  tavern,  the  'George,' 
with  its  quaint  courtyard"  —  but  ten  minutes'  walk  from 
the  far  end  of  the  Bridge,  and  which  I  am  glad  to  say  still 
exists,  for  I  visited  it  the  day  I  made  the  sketch  accompany- 
ing this  chapter. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  it  was  in  the  courtyard  of  the 
George  that  Sam  Weller,  being  at  the  time  "boots"  of  the 
hostelry,  first  met  Mr.  Pickwick  when  on  his  way  to  catch 
Jingle  and  Miss  Wardle  —  a  bit  of  information  current  at 
the  time  the  "Pickwick  Papers"  were  being  issued,  and 
which,  if  it  reached  Mr.  Thackeray's  ears  at  all  (and  it  must 
have  done  so),  would  have  sent  him  post-haste  to  look  the 
spot  over,  he  being  particularly  anxious,  as  we  all  know,  to 
illustrate  the  book. 

It  may  be  that  he  felt  that  Mr.  Dickens  had  preempted 
the  locality,  so  to  speak,  and  had  thus  avoided  it.  Then, 
again,  this  was  an  open  air  background,  and  not  a  closed 
drawing-room,  or  cozy  tavern  —  places  almost  always  used 
by  him  when  in  search  of  "local  colour." 

But  that  he  loved  the  great,  gray  mass,  standing  waist- 
deep  in  the  waters,  its  strong  arms  held  out  to  either 
bank,  I  have  no  shadow  of  doubt. 

For  a  great  Bridge  it  was  in  his  tune  and  still  is  in  ours: 

197 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

dignified,  solemn,  conscious  of  its  strength,  unruffled  — 
even  when  thousands  of  insects  on  wheels  crawl  over  its 
backbone,  or  lumbering  tows  sweep  beneath  its  arches. 

As  for  its  solidity:  Were  it  a  ledge  of  primeval  rock 
straddling  the  river,  with  holes  scooped  out  to  let  its 
floods  pass  in  safety,  it  could  not  appear  to  be  more  per- 
manent or  more  irresistible.  The  houses  of  Parliament 
themselves  might  come  swooping  down  with  a  mighty  on- 
slaught, and  the  old  Bridge  would  but  hunch  one  shoulder  of 
its  abutments  in  defence,  and  the  whole  mass  would  crum- 
ble as  does  a  field  of  ice,  in  its  pitch  over  a  dam. 

And  the  width  and  length  of  it !  —  on  top,  under  the  arches 
and  at  each  end:  So  wide  that  one  must  look  over  the 
parapet  to  be  convinced  that  it  is  not  one  of  London's 
streets;  so  high,  that  everything  about  it  is  dwarfed;  so 
long,  that  the  farther  end  is  lost  in  a  gray  film. 

Evins,  to  whom  every  foot  of  it  was  as  well  known  as  the 
"down  grade"  to  Paddington  station,  or  the  "turn  in"  at 
Charing  Cross,  learning  that  I  wanted  to  see  it  "broadside 
on,"  whirled  the  cab  to  the  left  —  we  had  just  come  over 
from  the  "George  Inn"  —  twisted  down  a  breakneck  lane, 
around  some  warehouses,  and  so  out  upon  a  sort  of  landing 
a  few  feet  above  the  water  line,  bristling  with  heavy  iron 
cranes.  Here  were  square  wooden  floats  bearing  idle  row- 
boats  —  huge  affairs  which  would  hold  a  ship's  entire  crew 
—  had  held  them  no  doubt. 

"There  ye  are,  sir,  and  ye  can  see  the  Tower  Bridge  fur- 
ther up,  and  if  it  wasn't  for  Ben  Tillett  and  a  lot  of  other 
fools  who  do  be  wanting  to  cut  their  noses  off  to  spite  their 
ugly  mugs,  you'd  have  the  river  covered  with  lighters  and 

198 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

tows,  which  it  ain't  been  these  four  weeks,  owing  to  the 
dock  strike  which  is  still  on." 

But  there  were  boats  aplenty;  even  the  vociferous  labour 
leader  could  not  quite  empty  the  rolling  Thames,  or  spoil 
the  scene  for  me.  A  lively,  impudent  tug  was  puffing 
flares  of  white  steam  into  the  face  of  the  gray  monster,  and 
away  up  the  lane  of  glistening  silver  my  eyes  rested  on  tiny 
croton  bugs  which  must  have  been  isolated  scows,  either 
adrift  or  anchored,  while  up  against  the  sky  was  a  little 
embroidered  edging  which  proved  to  be  the  huge  stone  rail 
or  parapet  guarding  the  footway.  Behind  this,  moved 
little  dots  of  heads  and  flat  crawly  things  which  turned  out 
to  be  vans  and  omnibuses,  with  smaller  dots  fringing  their 
tops.  Over  all  shone  one  of  those  luminous  ground-glass 
skies  that  one  sometimes  sees  in  London  when  the  night's 
rain  and  wind  have  swept  away  the  smoke,  and  things 
stand  out  and  are  real. 

And  with  the  crisp  joyousness  of  everything  about  me 
came  a  note  of  sadness.  I  had  lived  with  My  Master  for 
weeks,  thought  only  of  him,  and  at  times  had  almost  felt 
the  warmth  of  his  hand  in  mine.  Now  the  end  had  come. 
This  was  my  last  sketch.  On  the  morrow  I  must  say 
good-bye  both  to  him  and  to  his  haunts.  Yes,  it  was  all 
over  —  the  work  finished  and  the  charcoal  box  closed. 
It  would  be  colour  now  along  the  lagoons  of  my  beloved 
Venice. 

And  I  had  another  farewell  to  say,  for  this  was  also  my 
last  day  with  Evins. 

"Paris  to-morrow,"  I  said  to  him,  in  reluctant  tones,  as 
I  laid  down  my  charcoal. 

199 


IN  THACKERAY'S  LONDON 

"Yes,  sir,  so  the  porter  at  Jules's  told  me.  I'll  be 
around,  sir,  early,  and  take  ye  to  Victoria  station." 

"I  hate  to  go,  Evins  —  now  that  we  have  got  to  know 
each  other,"  I  added. 

"And  I  hate  to  have  ye,  sir.  Been  a  great  month  — 
nothing  to  do  but  sit  still  and  see  ye  bang  away.  Easiest 
job  I  ever  struck.  Ye  must  be  getting  hungry,  sir;  shall 
I  go  for  a  bottle  and  a  sandwich?" 

"No,  Evins,  I'd  rather  have  a  table  somewhere.  Where 
will  it  be?    The  Cock,  Cheshire  Cheese,  or  around  here?" 

"Better  make  it  The  Cock,  sir.  Nothing  'round  here 
but  tripe  and  pigs'  feet,  and  but  little  of  them." 

"Make  it  The  Cock,  then,  Evins." 

And  so  it  was. 


THE   END 


The  Country  Life  Press 
gabden  city,  n.  y, 


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